Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SHREWSBURY AND ATCHAM BOROUGH COUNCIL (FRANKWELL FOOTBRIDGE) BILL (By Order).

Order for Third Reading read.

To be read the Third time upon Thursday next.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL [Lords] (By Order)

EMU WINE HOLDINGS LIMITED AND SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES BILL [Lords] (By Order).

Orders for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday next.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL (By Order)

Read a Second time and committed.

HERITABLE SECURITIES AND MORTGAGE INVESTMENT ASSOCIATION LIMITED BILL [Lords] (By Order).

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday next.

Oral Answers to Questions —

Mr. Speaker: Before we begin Questions, I remind the House that I dislike having to complain that answers and questions are too long. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will bear that in mind this afternoon.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

European Parliament (Direct Elections)

Mr. Channon: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Government have yet decided what system of voting to recommend to the House for direct elections to the European Parliament; and if it is his intention to consult the House before presenting a Bill.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Merlyn Rees): The Government will put their conclusions on these matters before the House shortly.

Mr. Channon: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that only a very small number of hon. Members had the chance to express their views in the debate? Would it not be very much better, before we have the Second Reading of this Bill, for the House to be afforded an opportunity to debate and vote upon what system of direct elections we should have, if we are to have direct elections at all?

Mr. Rees: I am certainly taking that into account. In view of Mr. Speaker's instructions on the length of replies, I will simply say that there are those who argue, contrary to the view of the hon. Gentlemand and that such a Bill must be considered as a whole rather than that these issues should be taken separately.

Mr. Alan Clark: But is that answer not simply a cover-up for some private agreement between the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel)? Why should the obvious requirements of constitutional protocol be subordinated to a stay of execution for the Liberal Party?

Mr. Rees: I do not follow that convoluted thought, but a major constitutional question is involved in the issue


of direct elections, and I think that due consideration should be given to it.

Mr. Whitelaw: We have been going along saying that it is a major constitutional issue, that there is this way and that way, this view and that view, and that it is all very difficult. But is it not the Government's job to get over difficulties? When is the right hon. Gentleman actually going to produce some idea as to how he intends to resolve the difficulties about which he constantly tells us and which, of course, we also appreciate?

Mr. Rees: All the points that the right hon. Gentleman has encapsulated are still the case. We shall produce our ideas soon.

Children and Young Persons Act

Mr. Alan Clark: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received concerning the working of the Children and Young Persons Act since the publication of the White Paper, Command Paper No. 6494.

Mr. Goodlad: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress he has made in carrying out the proposals detailed in the White Paper on the Children and Young Persons Act published in May 1976.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Brynmor John): My right hon. Friend has since May 1976 received representations from a number of hon. Members, juvenile court panels and clerks to the justices and from organisations about the working of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969.
For progress made in carrying out the proposals in the White Paper on the Children and Young Persons Act 1969—Cmnd. 6494—I would refer the hon. Members to the answer given to a Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) on 4th May.

Mr. Clark: Is not the key question whether the Government are to amend the 1969 Act in order to give juvenile courts the powers that they need to deal with hardened offenders?

Mr. John: The Government set out their response to this question in the

White Paper that was issued in response to the Select Committee's Report. We believe that juvenile courts should not make secure care orders and that the responsiblity for the placement of juveniles should be with the local authorities. But subject to that, and within that principle, we are discussing with magistrates, local authorities and all other interested parties how to get around the question of the hard core of determined offenders—which I believe is a very small minority.

Mr. Goodlad: Is the Minister aware of the widespread concern among magistrates throughout the country that at the moment they have no power to ensure that a juvenile offender who should be placed in a secure environment for his own safety and for that of the community, may not, in fact, be sent home? Will he follow the recommendations of the Expenditure Committee and take steps to introduce a secure care order?

Mr. John: We made it clear that we were not accepting the recommendation in that respect. Of course I understand the concern of the magistrates in that direction, but the question of a secure care order would blur the responsibility for the treatment of young offenders between the local authorities and the courts. I do not believe that to be desirable.

Mr. Edward Gardner: But is it not a fact that for the hardened and persistent young offender the time has passed for treatment and the time for punishment has arrived?

Mr. John: I do not believe so. I do not believe that the hon. and learned Gentleman really believes so. If he has discussed it—and I know that he has—he will have found that the amazing thing is that there is no agreement between the authorities as to how large this problem is. No one has any idea what the hard core consists of.

Mr. Costain: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now extend the attendance centre system as recommended by the Expenditure Committee in its Eleventh Report on the Children and Young Persons Act.

Mr. John: Consultations are in hand with a view to a modest extension of the junior attendance centre system.

Mr. Costain: Is the Minister aware that some years have passed since the Eleventh Report was published, and that hooliganism and youth crime have gone on continually? Should not the Government give a more effective answer than to say that the matter is still under consideration? When will they do something about this problem?

Mr.John: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was listening when I answered his Question, or whether that supplementary question was prepared in advance. What I said was that we are having consultations with a view to a modest extension of the present system.

Football Hooliganism

Mr. MacGregor: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce further penal measures to combat football hooliganism.

Mr. Sims: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had with interested persons and organisations concerning measures to deal with those involved in football hooliganism.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I have already had one meeting with representatives of the police and the football organisations and I plan to hold a further meeting soon at which my ministerial colleagues and I will review the position with them.
With regard to penalties, the Criminal Law Bill proposes an increase in the maximum summary fine for some of these offences to£1,000. I have also begun consultations with a view to extending the junior attendance centre system.

Mr. MacGregor: Is the Home Secretary aware that many people would agree with him that these increased fines, while welcome and helpful, are by no means the answer to the problem, partly because of the practice of having a whip-round to raise a kitty to meet the fine? Is he aware that many people concerned with these matters feel that a better answer would be to deprive these thugs of their liberty for a period—especially on Saturday afternoons—but that the facilities for doing so at present are inadequate? Will he pursue this aspect?

Mr. Rees: It is a matter for the magistrates to make their judgment on

a whip-round. But if the hon. Gentleman would consider, first, junior attendance centres and community service orders, I think that he would find that there are means now available for getting people away on a Saturday afternoon. What I have been considering is the possibility of these people having to report to police stations. I have talked to the police about this and they are not very keen on it. They would much prefer the attendance centre and community service. Reporting to a police station would apparently require many extra policemen.

Mr. Sims: Will the Home Secretary tell us whether amongst those he has consulted has been his hon. Friend the Minister responsible for sport, who in the last debate on sport spoke particularly in support of the attendance centre system? Will he explain to the Minister responsible for sport why he is willing to increase the number of attendance centres for juniors—there are 60 at the moment—but is apparently quite unwilling to increase the number of senior attendance centres for the 17-to-21 age group, of which there are only two, and this is the group in which football hooliganism is particularly rife?

Mr. Rees: I know the interest of the hon. Gentleman in that subject. I think he will know that the Advisory Council on the Penal System has advised us that in its view an attendance sentence for the 17-to-21 age group should be discontinued in favour of the use of other custodial measures, such as community service orders. In penal policy I take into account the views of those people who spend their lifetime involved in this area.

Mr. Hooson: Does the Home Secretary agree that as a matter of penal policy we should be encouraging the use of community service orders for this kind of offence? Is not the truth that the facilities are not readily available in many centres?

Mr. Rees: I do not think that is true, but this is not the time to run through the list. Community service is still developing quite rapidly throughout the country even at this time of financial stringency. I have discovered since becoming Home Secretary and going around the country that the community service order system is giving excellent results.
I pay tribute to the previous Administration for introducing the scheme.

Mr. Carter-Jones: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance to the House that the measures being attempted with regard to the banning of genuine spectators going to other grounds is a temporary expedient? Does he accept that those people who live near football grounds who are being disturbed and genuine supporters of football clubs welcome strong measures being taken against the minority of hooligans?

Mr. Rees: I think that my hon. Friend's last point is absolutely right. As I have told the House before, I live within a quarter of a mile of the Leeds United ground, and my neighbours and I—they far more often than I—are affected by this problem. My hon. Friend's question about my right hon. Friend the Minister responsible for sport and any arrangements that he has made in conjunction with the Football League, and so on, is not a matter for me. But those arrangements, which the sporting clubs have made themselves, do not have the force of law..

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Fines and detention are all right, but does the right hon. Gentleman agree that restitution for damage done to property is far too seldom ordered by magistrates?

Mr. Rees: I am on dangerous ground. Such power is available to magistrates. It is right that they should know our views, but in no sense will I interfere with their freedom to impose the sentences that they judge to be right.

Mr. Spriggs: Is my right hon. Friend aware that while we abhor the disturbances and problems created inside sports stadiums we also take a positive dislike to those who commit serious vandalism and cause injuries to the public outside football stadiums, and that whatever steps are taken by his Department as necessary to stamp out such activities will have the full support of the country?

Mr. Rees: I know that there is public concern about this whole problem. I have given it serious consideration. When one considers the detail, tribute should be paid to Rugby League football. My hon. Friend represents a very good Rugby

League town. It is worth investigating why there is remarkably little trouble in Rugby League, even at Wembley. There may be something in that. [HON. MEMBERS "What about Rugby Union?"] I should be the last person to praise Rugby Union—that goes without saying.

Mr. Mayhew: It is much too soon for the Home Secretary to decide to do away with senior attendance centres, of which there are only two. Is not the way ahead to continue with the experiment, which is cheap and effective, and keeps this class of hooligan offender out of circulation for a considerable time?

Mr. Rees: The two centres are an experiment. All I was giving was the advice given to us by the Advisory Council on the Penal System. The advice that it gives is that community service is better for this age group. It is worth considering the view of such a body, and I have to take it into account. But these are value judgments, not absolute judgments. In penal policy, absolute judgments are usually wrong.

Mr. Whitelaw: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the vast majority of people in this country would consider it a thoroughly commonsense solution to make sure that, by one means or another, these football hooligans should be unable to attend the football matches at which they cause trouble? If that is so, should he not use the combination of attendance centres and community service orders, to which I am glad he paid tribute, because I believe that they are a great success? I support my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) in suggesting that the right hon. Gentleman should not be too hasty in doing away with the senior attendance centres. Is it not reasonable to ask that magistrates should at least have their notice called to the possibility of using these measures to stop hooligans from attending football matches on Saturday afternoons?

Mr. Rees: Certainly it is possible—and, obviously, it is done, although not necessarily in a formal way—for such notice to be drawn. I shall not repeat the view that I gave just now. It is the combination of those steps that is important. The other day, I read the report


of the Norwich v. Manchester United match, and there was one thing that struck me. Very young boys act in an incredible way. When their team loses, they cry. Tears which one would expect from a young child seem also to come from these kids. It is an extraordinary situation. So the sort of view we take may be wrong because we just do not understand the problem.

Obscene Publications Acts

Mr. Tim Renton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has plans to revise the Obscene Publications Acts.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): The departmental committee which the Government are to appoint should first be allowed to carry out its comprehensive review of the law on obscenity, indecency and censorship.

Mr. Renton: I welcome the setting up of that departmental committee. May I ask, with all suitable humility, whether it will consider the reccommendations for the amendment of the Obscene Publications Act, which I suggested in a Bill last year that had all-party support? May I also ask whether anyone who is interested will be able to give evidence to the departmental committee and, in view of the widespread concern on the subject, whether some of the evidence will be heard in public?

Dr. Summerskill: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's first supplementary question, is that the review will cover the Obscene Publications Act and the common law on obscenity and indecency. Evidence will be given to the committee, but it depends on the chairman, when the committee is set up, whether there will be any public sittings.

Mr. Marten: May I, as one who is very broadminded and not a bit prudish, ask whether the Minister is aware that magazines that are available on public bookstalls and are sent to me by constituents who have bought them are circulating among schoolchildren, and that not only the pictures but the articles in them are extremely corrupting to those of tender years? Is there anything that can be done to limit that sort of thing happening in

the meantime, before the committee reports?

Dr. Summerskill: The committee will be looking into restrictions on indecent displays and also into Customs and postal controls on indecent and obscene material. That, I think, covers everything that the hon. Gentleman has in mind.

Comprehensive Community Programmes

Mr. Anthony Grant: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the cost of each comprehensive community programme in England, Scotland and Wales.

Mr. John: Comprehensive community programmes are being developed in Gateshead and Motherwell at an estimated cost of£35,000 and£50,000 respectively, over the period 1976–78.

Mr. Grant: Does the Minister recall that his Department aimed at dealing with these urban problems within five years? After three years of neglect and, by a remarkable coincidence, just before the local elections, does he really think that he can resolve the problem in two years?

Mr. John: Of course not. I do not believe that the period 1976–78 will provide the solution. I am saying that the establishment of comprehensive community programmes in the two areas will teach us a great deal more about deprivation in those areas than we know at the moment. The hon. Gentleman, above all, should realise that these problems are much more complex than anyone in the House understood to be the case 10 years ago.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what aspects of urban deprivation the comprehensive community programmes will principally seek to alleviate.

Mr. John: The complex problems of urban deprivation are combined in different ways in different parts of the country. Comprehensive community programmes are intended to provide a flexible but comprehensive approach to tackling the problems that characterise urban deprivation in a particular local authority area.

Mr. Bottomley: I am slightly mystified by that specific answer from the Minister. May I ask how he can tie that in with the Home Office Press notice of three years ago, which said that these problems would be dealt with within five years by such a programme?

Mr. John: I do not know the Press notice to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but if he finds nonsensical the statement that there are different combinations of deprivation in different areas I can only say that he does not understand the problem and that he ought to study it before asking questions on it.

Mr. Bottomley: Will the Minister be kind enough to spell out whether the programme in Gateshead and the other place will specify the problems, or actually deal with them? Does there not seem to be confusion in the Home Office which was not there when the Press notice went out on 18th July 1974?

Mr. John: There are three stages in dealing with this matter—first, to establish an index of the particular types and combinations of deprivation which exist in the particular area; secondly, to devise methods for dealing with them; thirdly, to draw up a programme which includes not only the local authorities but the local government departments for that area, with a view to tackling the problem.

Mr. Anthony Grant: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the answers to the last two Questions, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Shoplifting

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied that the trading methods employed by food supermarkets do not encourage shoplifting; and to what he attributes the simultaneous increase in the number of food supermarkets and the number of shoplifting charges being brought.

Dr. Summerskill: The number of persons proceeded against or cautioned by the police for shoplifting in England and Wales rose from about 70,000 in 1971 to

about 107,000 in 1975. Figures for offences in different types of shop are not available, and I cannot therefore say how far, if at all, the increase in the number of food supermarkets contributed to this increase. Trading methods are a matter for the retailer, but I am glad to be able to tell the House that my noble Friend the Baroness Phillips has recently accepted our invitation to join the Home Office Standing Committee on Crime Prevention as a representative of the Association for the Prevention of Theft in Shops.

Mr. Adley: Will the Minister accept from me, after discussions with magistrates and solicitors, that the problem involved in the weekly food shopping at supermarkets is wholly different from the activities which attract headlines in the West End of London? Will she also accept that the trading methods employed by the supermarkets are directly responsible, because of the reduction in the numbers of staff, for the increase in food supermarket shoplifting? If she accepts this, will she further accept that it is unsatisfactory for the Home Office to continue to say that it is up to the stores, and that if it is known that a given system increases crime the Home Office has a responsibility to look very carefully at the system which prevails?

Dr. Summerskill: I appreciate that the hon. Member has a very keen interest in and knowledge of shoplifting, but I remind him that the working party set up by the Home Office on internal security made recommendations that were concerned mainly with prevention rather than with detection and that it did not recommend any Government legislation or Government action. The recommendations were addressed to the retailers, and the Government are doing everything possible to encourage the retailers to adopt them.

Mr. Jessel: Is not the danger of a mistaken charge of shoplifting much greater in a department store than in a supermarket, because in a supermarket people are reminded to pay by having to go through turnstiles?

Dr. Summerskill: As I said in my first answer, we do not have any figures for offences in different types of shops, but I am sure that all these points are taken


into consideration by those who run the shops.

Mr. Anthony Grant: Is not the most disturbing aspect of shoplifting the fact that the big increase is among children? Is the Minister aware that the police believe that this occurs largely because of the great increase in truancy from schools? Will she consider this very seriously with the Department of Education?

Dr. Summerskill: I shall certainly consider with my right hon. and hon. Friends the aspect that the hon. Gentleman has raised.

Chilean Refugees

Mr. Canavan: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what complaints he has received about officials dealing with the entry into the United Kingdom of Chilean refugees.

Dr. Summerskill: There is no record of any complaints about individual officials of the Immigration and Nationality Department or staff of the Immigration Service at the ports.

Mr. Canavan: But as the Scottish adjudicator, a Mr. Aitcheson, has refused entry to several Chilean refugees on the grounds that he considers them to have too Left-wing Socialist views, that they would simply raise the level of unemployment in Scotland and that they should go elsewhere—to Cuba, for instance—will my hon. Friend take steps now to sack this Right-wing, prejudiced lawyer, who quite clearly is not fulfilling his duties and who would be better deported to Chile where he could see at first hand what a Fascist régime is like?

Dr. Summerskill: For the information of my hon. Friend, the adjudicators are not officials. That is why I did not deal with them in my first reply. But neither are they answerable to my right hon. Friend for the way in which they carry out their duties. However, I am sure that they are well aware of the very strong and vocal criticism that has been made of them by my hon. Friends.

Mr. Faulds: Although there may not be many justifiable complaints about the officials who handle such cases, will my hon. Friend accept that there is considerable concern that the Home Office

itself is somewhat reluctant to process unhappy cases such as these of Chilean refugees with anything like the speed and magnanimity that it should show?

Dr. Summerskill: I cannot agree with my hon. Friend.

Mr. Faulds: I have had cases.

Dr.Summerskill: I know that my right hon. Friend has personally looked at this matter very carefully. Every possible effort is made to process the refugees as quickly as possible. I remind my hon. Friend that the system of entry to this country is quite different from that of most other countries in that we authorise entry at the port of entry rather than after the person has entered the country.

Mr. Faulds: But will my hon. Friend accept that, much as I should like to accept that answer, I find it very difficult in view of the cases I have personally raised with the Home Office, particularly the case of a woman whose surname is, I think, Garcia-Rojas, who has now come to Britain and who made an application two years ago? There were long delays in that case and there are in others.

Dr. Summerskill: I shall certainly look again into the case that my hon. Friend has mentioned. I can assure him that in approximately the last six months there has been a great speeding-in in the entry of these refugees.

Mr. Faulds: Possibly, in the last six months.

Metropolitan Police Officers (Criminal Charges)

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many members of the Metropolitan Police Force have been charged with criminal offences in the last three years.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me that the number of officers charged with criminal—excluding traffic—offences was 33 in 1974, 32 in 1975, and 45 in 1976.

Mr. Goodhart: As the Secretary of State will know that all policemen are automatically suspended from duty the moment they are charged, may I ask whether he is aware that some policemen have to wait for more than a year and


a half before their cases are heard in court? As that sort of delay can ruin the career of men who are later proved innocent, can he co-operate with his noble Friend the Lord Chancellor to try to find a way of giving priority to the hearing of cases involving serving policemen?

Mr. Rees: The hon. Gentleman is referring to a particular case. He has been in touch with my noble Friend about it. I have the letter here. It states:
This is a very complex case and the delay in its hearing is in no way attributable to the court. Both prosecution and defence need time to prepare for the trial and both agree that the most suitable time would be September this year.
I cannot interfere in that matter.

Mr. Mellish: My right hon. Friend will know that the Metropolitan Police in particular has come in for a lot of criticism from certain ill-informed quarters. Does he not agree that the numbers he has just declared are an infinitesimal fraction of this very good band of men and women who do a first-class, brilliant job for London?

Mr. Rees: The figures are very small for criminal charges. I agree with the way my right hon. Friend has spoken. What happens among the police, or Members of Parliament or anybody else in the public eye, is that the unusual cases are taken to prove the generality, which is wrong.

Mr. Aitken: Does the Home Secretary recall that one of the reasons why the former Police Commissioner, Sir Robert Mark, retired early was his complaint that the future Police Compaints Board might reduce to what he called the imperfect level of criminal justice the procedure by which internal disciplines have been so effectively maintained in the past? Is there not a real danger that, thanks to the cumbersome new machinery being introduced, there will be a rise in the number of these criminal prosecutions, because there is no other effective method for internal discipline to be substituted?

Mr. Rees: The question of why the previous Commissioner decided to retire is more complex than the hon. Gentleman would know. I pay tribute to him. He has been a friend of mine for a long time.
The internal procedures which are coming into force in June have been passed by this House, and I think it would be a good idea to see how they work. Having praised the police, it is important to state that the complaints against police procedures should be understood and supported by the community at large. I think we shall find that they will work.

Mr. Spriggs: Will my right hon. Friend inform the House about the situation of police officers who come under an inquiry order from the chief constable—whether they are suspended from duty during the inquiry or whether they are suspended once they are charged? Which is it?

Mr. Rees: I do not know the answer to that question. Suspension is a problem. It is something that hangs over the head of a policeman for a long time. But I shall check at what point of time the suspension is made.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Does the Home Secretary agree that he has given an imprecise impression in suggesting that there is only one case of the kind raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart)? As he knows, there are hundreds of police officers falsely accused who are suspended from duty, who are later found to be innocent but whose careers have suffered in the meantime and their wives and families have been pilloried. I hope that the Home Secretary will put the matter into better perspective than he has done so far.

Mr. Rees: It is not a matter of proper perspective. I was answering the point on which the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) is writing to me, which the hon. Gentleman does not know about. I gave the precise answer to that. I was talking not about complaints procedure but about one case about which his hon. Friend is concerned. In terms of criminal charges, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. He is referring to the complaints procedure, which is a separate issue about which we were not talking. As to how to answer it, I agree that there is a problem in that respect, but it is not the point that the hon. Member for Beckenham was talking about.

Mr. Burden: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that when charges are apparently well founded there should be suspension? Can he give an undertaking that before suspension is entered into steps are taken to ensure that the charges are not purely malicious and unfounded?

Mr. Rees: There is a great difficulty here in the suspension and the procedure under the complaints arrangement, as opposed to the criminal case. There are problems, as I know when I go around the country, but we shall look at that point carefully. I know that chief constables—who, after all, have rights in this matter, as they should have—will take into account what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Obscenity Laws (Committee of Inquiry)

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now give the names of those who are to serve on the committee which is to inquire into the obscenity laws.

Dr. Summerskill: We have as yet nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Member's question on 25th February.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: When will the Minister announce the setting-up of this committee? When will she say who will be its chairman? Can she at least tell us what its terms of reference are?

Dr. Summerskill: The answer to the first question is that we have announced the setting-up of the committee, but we have not, I agree, announced the name of the chairman or the names of the members. We shall do so as soon as possible, and we are making every possible speed.

Mr. Sims: Will the hon. Lady give further consideration to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) earlier this afternoon? Is she aware that in a number of shops material is freely available which is grossly offensive, often in sweet shops where children congregate? Is she aware that it is essential that something should be done about the matter without waiting for her committee to be set up and to report?

Dr. Summerskill: The question of how to deal with this matter has always been the subject of great controversy and discussion.

Therefore, I think it would be extremely useful to have the recommendations of the committee, which will look into the points that concern hon. Members.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: I am most grateful, but the Minister did not answer my last question concerning the terms of reference of the committee.

Dr. Summerskill: As soon as we can announce the names of the chairman and the members of the committee, certainly the terms of reference, which I hope will be very wide, will be announced.

Police Officers (Family Income Supplement)

Sir John Hall: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has received about the number of policemen's families who have applied for family income supplement; and how many families have applied for financial help from the various police benevolent funds over the last complete12 months.

Dr. Summerskill: Police forces are not necessarily informed of applications for or payment of family income supplement, but I have been told of 31 applications, 13 of which were successful.
A policeman in his first year of service would qualify for family income supplement only if he had at least four children and received no overtime pay, assuming that he was living in a provided house.
Force benevolent funds have been in existence for many years and, amongst other things, make grants and loans to meet short-term problems in particular cases. I understand that in the 12 months to 31st March 1977 about 470 grants and loans were made.

Sir J. Hall: Does the Minister agree that there is increasing evidence of the need for policemen to apply for aid from one source or another? At a time when in many counties overtime opportunities are being restricted and when, under the terms and conditions of service, policemen are not allowed to take second jobs or take lodgers in their own homes, is it not rather disgraceful that their present rate of pay makes it essential for them, to look elsewhere for help?.

Dr. Summerskill: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that the figures that I have read out are evidence of a very great number of married police officers who are applying for family income supplement. The number is in fact relatively small, considering the total number of people in the police force.

Mr. Hooson: Although the number of officers receiving family income supplement that was cited is small, is it not nevertheless disturbing to the country that police officers have to resort to this? In this month's issue of the magazine Police details are set out of the police case on their claim for pay, and various cases are cited. Will the Home Office present the departmental answer to the allegations made in this statement, so that hon. Members will have the opportunity to judge for themselves whether or not the case is well-founded?

Dr. Summerskill: I repeat that for a policeman to qualify he has to have at least four children and receive no overtime pay. As for the general pay policy, as the House must know, phase 2 is on the table for the police.

Mr. Mellish: My hon. Friend will be aware that earlier we were given figures about the honesty of policemen, by and large. May I put it to her or to her right hon. Friend that it is very important that as these people are expected to be absolutely perfect in the job they do it is about time that the salaries associated with the job encouraged them to be perfect?

Dr. Summerskill: I remind the House that in phase 1 of the pay policy the police received a 30 per cent. increase, but I still agree that the maintenance of good police pay is essential for the running of the service.

Mr. Whitelaw: Will the hon. Lady take into account that many police officers—I think the House will understand this—may feel that as a matter of pride they should not apply for family income supplement? Secondly, will she convey to her right hon. Friend the fact that all these questions add up to the urgent need to reach a settlement of this very unhappy dispute at the earliest possible moment?

Dr. Summerskill: I certainly agree with the last words of the right hon. Gentleman. Obviously it is up to the police, to some extent, as well as the Government. But I do not think that anybody should be ashamed of claiming family income supplement. It is not a matter either of pride or of shame.

Immigration Rules (Dependants)

Miss Fookes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will define the term "dependant" in relation to the immigration rules.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I refer the hon. Member to House of Common Papers 79 to 82 of 1973—Statements of Immigration Rules for Control on and after Entry—as amended.

Miss Fookes: Will the right hon. Gentleman refresh my memory now, please?

Mr. Rees: Of course I shall. I shall do the same for myself. Under the legislation, the basic dependants are wives and children under 16, as I think the hon. Lady knows. Above that there is a discretion. That answers the question simply. The details are before me—but I should show myself up if I read them instead of showing that I know them.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: The Minister said "wives", in the plural. [Interruption.] It is not a laughing matter. Last week, in answer to a question from me, he admitted that certain people can bring in four wives and 12 children and be entitled to housing for those four wives and 12 children. Does he not know that this is causing a lot of trouble in areas where there is stress—and not only to the poor man with four wives?

Mr. Rees: I answered the question of my hon. Friend. The answer is that—in the words of Eliza Doolittle—it "hardly ever happens".

Mr. Jessel: Are fiancées sometimes treated as dependants? If so, why?

Mr. Rees: No, they are not treated as dependants, because that would not fit the book of rules that the hon. Lady and I know so well.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

Mr. Canavan: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for 5th May.

Mr. Michael Spicer: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 5th May 1977.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his engagements for 5th May.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be holding further meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. This evening I shall be welcoming President Carter on his arrival in this country.

Mr. Canavan: Will my right hon. Friend send an urgent message today to the Queen, warning her that her speech yesterday appears to have upset the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) and other loyalists in the SNP, who now appear to be intent on replacing the Monarch by another "Old Pretender" who has ambitions of becoming Winnie, Queen of Scots?

The Prime Minister: I am afraid that I cannot begin to compete with my hon. Friend, whose remarks seem to be as much in tune with the sentiment of this House as was the speech of Her Majesty yesterday.

Mr. Roberts: Among the Prime Minister's engagements today is his appearance at the Dispatch Box this afternoon. Does the letter from his secretary to the Clerk of the Select Committee on Procedure, on the matter of Prime Minister's Questions, mean that in future the right hon. Gentleman will be prepared to deal with Questions relating to important issues on foreign and defence matters but not with Questions relating to important issues in the domestic sphere? Do the Government accept the recommendation of the Select Committee? If so, do they have the intention of implementing it?

The Prime Minister: I thought it appropriate to wait for a few days before making a statement to the House on this

matter, I suggest that I may do so next Thursday, when I have received a response to the recommendations of the Select Committee. The hon. Gentleman will know, from the fact that I not only instigated the inquiry but made the proposals, that I shall not be unfriendly to the recommendations.

Mr. Donald Stewart: Is the Prime Minister aware, following the question from his hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan), that, speaking as a member of the House of Stuart who owes loyalty to Her Majesty, it is my opinion that there might be better claimants to the Throne than the one mentioned by the hon. Gentleman? Is it correct that it is a constitutional convention that Her Majesty's pronouncements in Parliament represent Government policy? If that convention still exists, does the Prime Minister accept responsibility for Her Majesty's address to the Houses of Parliament yesterday?.

The Prime Minister: That is a question that I thought I might be asked, and I should like to give a considered reply to it.
Unlike the speech from the Throne, the Queen's reply to the Loyal Addresses was not a statement of Government policy. It was a personal response by the Queen, but it should certainly be regarded as having been made on the advice of Ministers, as are all Her Majesty's speeches. I saw it myself before it was delivered and I saw no reason to propose any alteration.
If the right hon. Gentleman cares to read it again, he will see that the speech specifically recognised the strength of feeling for the devolution of government to Scotland and Wales, and emphasised the benefits to all of maintaining the integrity of the United Kingdom. That is, and remains, the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Bryan Davies: As my right hon. Friend's duties today include a warm welcome to the President of the United States, will he be in a position to discuss with President Carter a most interesting, democratic idea put forward recently by the President, namely, that a member of the Press should be present at Cabinet meetings in the United States? Is not that


an idea that might usefully be employed in the United Kingdom as well?

The Prime Minister: Sometimes I wonder whether they are not. The answer to my hon. Friend is that although all of us are always in favour of as much open government as we can provide, there are, nevertheless, occasions when people want to discuss things quietly among themselves, without the all-intrusive eye of the Press being present. I can tell my hon. Friend what would happen if one did admit a member of the Press to Cabinet meetings. There would then be small conclaves in smoke-filled rooms where the Press was not present. It is far better that this should be done on a regular basis.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is it part of the Prime Minister's open government that the report of the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration should have been leaked to the medical Press this morning? Is he aware that he has had that report on his desk for more than a month? Is it not rather a shabby way to treat the profession to allow the matter to come out in this underhand way? What is in the report that the Prime Minister is so frightened of it?

The Prime Minister: I fear that the answer to all parts of that question is "I do not know".

Mr. David Steel: May I revert to the Prime Minister's considered reply of a moment ago? Is he aware that it was very much preferable to many of his unconsidered replies? The sentiments that he expressed represent not just the policy of Her Majesty's Government; they are totally in accord with the views of the majority of the people of Scotland regardless of their political persuasion.

The Prime Minister: My answer to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's question is that if there were not so many unconsidered supplementary questions there would not need to be so many unconsidered replies.
I agree with the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's question. The House gave a Second Reading to the devolution Bill by a substantial majority, and I think that it would be useful if the House could agree to make progress on the Bill, even if certain changes need

to be made to it, to meet the real demand of the Scottish and Welsh people. Then they can decide the matter by a referendum.

Oral Answers to Questions — CBI

Mr. Tim Renton: asked the Prime Minister when he next plans to meet the President of the CBI

The Prime Minister: I met some of the leaders of the CBI, including the President, on 15th February. Further meetings will be arranged as necessary.

Mr. Renton: When these further meetings are arranged, will the Prime Minister be discussing phase 3? Following thedecision of the engineering workers' union yesterday, is phase 3 now dead? If so, should not the Prime Minister phase himself out and put the matter democratically to the test at a General Election?

The Prime Minister: I note the glee with which the Opposition meet every possible obstacle that is placed in the way of securing an incomes policy. I trust that the country will note, it too. I read this morning that the AEUW's rejection of a phase 3 yesterday was met by the rejection of a decision to go for a big and high wage claim.
If the Opposition really wish to help, I think that they can best do so by not attempting to drive wedges in a situation in which the whole economic future of the country is at stake. It would also help if we knew whether, if ever there should be a Conservative Government, at a moment like this they would be trying to secure an incomes policy, or whether it would be a free-for-all, with the sky as the limit.

Mr. Flannery: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Conservative Party had its way the economy would be in utter chaos? Will he, none the less, accept that phase 3 and the social contract are now severely in question, and that many members of the trade union movement and leaders of the trade union movement are finding themselves under tremendous pressure? The only way to meet this pressure is to move from the present policy towards partial reflation of the economy and to take into account the fact that bigger wage increases must be given, otherwise the project will burst wide open.

The Prime Minister: I agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's question—that the Opposition have no policy for dealing with the economic situation that confronts this country. It is that which gives me additional strength to pursue the difficult policy that we are following.
On the second part of my hon. Friend's question, I think, with respect, that he is repeating some of the things that I have said about the next phase of incomes policy. We all know the pressures that have built up on differentials and other matters, and I have indicated, as has the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that over the next two to three months we must try to work for a policy that will restrain these pressures, whilst recognising the real problems that ordinary people have in their daily lives.
The Government will be ready to reflate the moment our economic situation seems to put us in a position to do so. Things are going the right way. Our reserves are the highest ever. They were at a record level yesterday. Interest rates are steadily coming down. [Interruption.]The shouts from the Opposition cannot drown the fact that building society rates will also be coming down again soon. These matters are moving in the right direction, even though the Opposition do not care to admit it.

Mr. Tebbit: When the Prime Minister next sees the CBI, will he be kind enough to tell its members whether he thinks that it is the employers or the trade unionists in Britain who are not sufficiently responsible to be trusted with a return to free collective bargaining?

The Prime Minister: I should not dream of talking to either group about this in terms of responsibility or lack of responsibility, because that is not the best way to get an agreement. What is clear is that, because of the pressure of circumstances, employers are frequently tempted to offer high rates, and that is then followed by other employers in order to get labour. This is a difficult situation. We have all been trying to handle it. The Opposition have failed time after time. We have also failed in the past. Now the future of our country is involved, and we are going to make another effort at solving the problem.

Mrs. Thatcher: If the Prime Minister is so pleased with his economic performance,

will he explain to the House why the only European country to have a worse record on inflation than ours over the period of the Labour Government is Iceland?

The Prime Minister: With respect, the right hon Lady is selective in her choice of statistics. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) should keep quiet after the untruth that he told about me yesterday. It would not come amiss if he were to apologise, and I hope that he will do so. [Interruption.] I hope that he will raise a point of order on this.
My reply to the right hon. Lady's question is that the truth is that if one takes the three years separately one sees that the rate of inflation has improved in the third year by comparison with the first and second years. The reason for the situation in the whole period which the right hon. Lady took is the increase in money supply, which worked its way through in the first 18 months of Labour Government. [Interruption.] It is no use the Opposition trying to dodge their responsibility for this. If the right hon. Lady were not so selective she would not take the period from March 1974, because she knows what happened then. She knows what happened to the money supply then. The truth—and I think that I know the figures from which the right hon. Lady is quoting—is in Hansard, in replies that I have given. [Interruption.] I know that the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) is the right hon. Lady's lap-dog and that he puts down Questions from which she draws the answers. I know that. I am bound to say to the right hon. Lady that, as she knows, if she looks at the third column of those figures she will see that the rate of inflation is improving and that she has selected the wrong instance.

Mrs. Thatcher: Why, then, were the Prime Minister and his colleagues claiming in the last election that they had inflation licked and that it was 8·4 per cent.? On that basis, it is now 19·9 per cent.

The Prime Minister: The figure of 8·4 per cent. was quoted over a period of three months. What I should like to hear from some responsible member of the Opposition—if, indeed, there are any


—is whether the Opposition deny the forecasts that are now being made that inflation will continue to come down in the second half of this year and the first quarter of 1978.

Oral Answers to Questions — OFFICIAL REPORT CORRECTION

Mr. John Davies: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the Prime Minister's remarks, may I raise this point of order with you? Can the House be protected from this situation? In the hearing of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself, during Prime Minister's Question Time on Tuesday the Prime Minister answered a Question on the subject of the attitude of mind of the Maputo conference by saying that it had always been the Government's purpose to give humanitarian and other aid to liberation movements, and he did not specify which liberation movements.
When Hansard appeared the following day we saw that it had corrected that statement, but The Times of the same day repeated exactly what we had heard the Prime Minister say. Hansard corrected that statement and eliminated the word "always". The report read:
We have given humanitarian and other aid to liberation movements".—[Official Report, 3rd May 1977; Vol. 931, c. 226.]
I expressed to the Foreign Secretary my relief that that change had been made. [Interruption.] I call the right hon. Gentleman to witness that I expressed my relief. I shall read what I said.

The Prime Minister (Mr.JamesCallaghan): From the beginning.

Mr. John Davies: I shall willingly repeat precisely what I said, which was:
Does the Foreign Secretary accept that there are two matters for relief? The first is the correction made to Hansard, by his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, to the words that the right hon. Gentleman actually used in replying to me yesterday on this self-same subject, in which he said—and I quote The Times—that…".—[Official Report, 4th May 1977; Vol. 931, c. 433.]
and so on. I said that that was a relief to those on the Opposition Benches.
The Prime Minister now declares that I have misrepresented him in what he said. Mr. Speaker, may I now point out that I have received a letter from the

Editor of the Official Report saying that he was in error in having corrected the phrase which we all heard—[Interruption.]—and which the Prime Minister actually uttered. [Interruption.]

Mr. Tebbit: Worse than Wilson.

The Prime Minister: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. The complaint that I have is that the right hon. Gentleman alleged that I had altered Hansard. [Interruption.] If am allowed to, I shall repeat his words. He said:
The first is the correction made to Hansard, by his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, to the words that the right hon. Gentleman actually used in replying to me yesterday…".—[Official Report, 4th May 1977; Vol. 931, c. 433.]
As I have always understood it, it is the most serious offence for an hon. Member to go to Hansard to correct his own words. Mr. Speaker, if the right hon. Gentleman had been in touch with me—[An HON. MEMBER: Or to send anybody.] Or to send anybody. [Interruption.] Sometimes I wonder about the standards of hon. Gentlemen opposite. I did not go to Hansard myself. I have made inquiries at No. 10, and nobody went on my behalf. Nobody having any responsibility to me has altered the words in Hansard. What I complain of about the right hon. Gentleman is that a simple inquiry at No. 10 yesterday morning would have shown him that I had done nothing of the kind, nor had anybody on my behalf. That inquiry would have saved the headlines in a newspaper this morning stating "Callaghan Alters Hansard." It is totally false and untrue, and I expect the hon. Gentleman, having made a direct allegation, and having told an untruth about it, to apologise.

Mr. John Davies: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I point out that not only the Opposition Benches heard but the report in The Times clearly recorded and reported the Prime Minister's words, but Hansard appeared in a different form. There is every evidence that a correction has been made. I repeat that the letter that I have received from Hansard is a disgraceful action because it invalidates the very questions that we had occasion to put to the Foreign Secretary yesterday.

Mr. Faulds: Dodgy Davies.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think it is to the advantage of the House to pursue the matter. There has clearly been a misunderstanding between two right hon. Members of this House.
The Prime Minister has made it clear that neither he nor his servants altered Hansard at all, and I think the House will have heard that answer and will accept it.

Mr. William Hamilton: Will they?

Several Hon. Members: rose—

The Prime Minister: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am quite ready to leave the matter there, because the House, I hope, will know what I have said and what is the truth. It is, of course, only a matter of good taste whether the right hon. Gentleman withdraws his charge. [Interruption.]

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There are a lot of hon. Members jumping up to pursue this matter on a point of order. I believe I heard the right hon. Gentleman say that the Editor of Hansard had taken responsibility for a mistake in altering Hansard.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House has heard the exchange.

Mr. Faulds: Typical of Thatcher's party: the modern Tories—shoddy little men.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman really must not give way to these outbursts. I am considering the goodness of the House in this matter and I believe that to pursue it when we have had clear statements is of advantage to no one.

Mr. John Mendelson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understand that the Prime Minister has accepted your suggestion, but this is a matter that concerns every Member of this House, because it may happen to others and not only to the Prime Minister.
The right hon. Gentleman has said to the House—and he was listened to carefully—that the Editor of Hansard has said that an error has been committed. But the burden of complaint against the right hon. Gentleman is that, without taking any steps to make sure whether the

Prime Minister had corrected Hansard or not, he publicly committed himself to that statement and thereby committed the serious offence of alleging that the Prime Minister had done something unparliamentary and wholly out of keeping with his record of over more than 30 years.
The right hon. Gentleman ought now calmly to get up and apologise for having done that.

Mr. John Davies: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. I willingly accept the letter that was sent to me by the Editor of Hansard in which he takes the blame for this correction, and therefore I totally accept that. But I cannot, I am afraid, withdraw my concern at the fact that a statement that was clearly made by the Prime Minister, heard by us all reported in the Press, was then otherwise reported in Hansard and corrected since

Mr. William Hamilton: That has nothing to do with the Prime Minister.

Mr. James Hamilton: Disgraceful.

Mr. John Davies: The House knows me well enough to know that I would never make a statement in disrespect to the Prime Minister without due cause.
I withdraw wholly anything which in any sense is thought to damage the Prime Minister's honour or position in this matter. That was not my intention.
I do, however, maintain the objection that I made originally to you, Mr. Speaker, that this House was led by the reporting in question to put questions to the Foreign Secretary which were not in respect of the real responses of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Mike Thomas: Why do you not just apologise?

The Prime Minister: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have always found the right hon. Gentleman a fair controversialist. He has now said that he withdraws the charge that I altered Hansard. I am very content to leave it at that, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for withdrawing.

Mr. Speaker: Private Notice Question—Mr. Winston Churchill.

Sir David Renton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman that there is no advantage, when the Prime Minister has accepted the statement, in pursuing the matter.

Sir David Renton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The position as it has been left is that Hansard is not at present a true record of what was said, and, as I understand it, what was admitted to have been said. My right hon. Friend has accepted what the Prime Minister said by way of explanation. Are we not entitled to ask of the Prime Minister that he should do what he is now entitled to do; namely, to have the record put straight?

Mr. Speaker: The House knows that ultimately I am responsible for Hansard, and I shall see that the necessary correction is made.

The Prime Minister: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I, of course, want the record to be accurate, and I am willing to accept any verdict that Hansard cares to pass. But if I am asked, as I was a moment ago, what I actually said, I am bound to tell the House that I do not quite remember whether I used the word "always" or not.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall make inquiries of the Editor of Hansard. Mr. Churchill.

Mr. COLIN SMITH

Mr. Churchill (by Private Notice): Mr. Churchill (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement about the position of the journalist, Mr. Colin Smith, lately arrested by the authorities in Zaire, in view of the threat to his life.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Dr. David Owen): Mr. Smith was detained by the Zairian authorities on 27th April, after crossing the border apparently from Zambia in company with a Spanish television crew. He was visited in Kolwezi Prison yesterday by our honorary consular representative in Lubumbashi,

who reports him to be well fed and in good spirits.
Our ambassador in Kinshasa has taken up Mr. Smith's case with the Zairian authorities. His reports indicate that there is now no threat to Mr. Smith's life. It also now seems unlikely that the Press conference, at which he and others also arrested were to appear, will be held in Kinshasa as previously announced. The ambassador is keeping in close touch with us.

Mr. Churchill: I express my gratitude to the Foreign Secretary for his statement. The family of Mr. Colin Smith and his colleagues, as well as many other people in this country, will be relieved to learn that there is no longer any threat to his life.
Is the Foreign Secretary aware that we in this House appreciate the difficulties of the situation facing the Government of the Republic of Zaire, following the invasion of their country by forces backed from Angola and by the Soviet Union, and that in the confused situation, particularly in Shaba Province, it is not easy for foreign journalists to operate?
Is the Foreign Secretary further aware that Mr. Colin Smith is a most distinguished correspondent of the Observer newspaper, and that he was in 1974 selected as the international journalist of the year and has a high reputation in this country? It is clear that he was acting in his capacity of bona fide journalist and correspondent and not in any way from an ulterior political motivation. Will the Foreign Secretary do all in his power to bring the facts to the attention of the Zairian authorities and seek the early release of Mr. Smith and his fellow journalists?

Dr. Owen: I will certainly do what I have been requested to do. I will keep in close personal touch with the situation. I hope that this message has brought some reassurance to Mr. Smith's family and colleagues. There is a complex and confused situation in Shaba Province. I recognise that there was no evidence of any motive by Mr. Smith other than that of reporting events. I am sure that the Zairian authorities, with whom we have good and close relations, will understand that and will deal with the matter as fairly and expeditiously as they can.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mrs. Thatcher: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 9TH MAY and TUESDAY 10TH MAY—Progress in Committee on the Finance Bill.
WEDNESDAY 11TH MAY—Supply [17th Allotted Day]: a debate on agriculture.
Afterwards, a debate on EEC 1976 Document R/1668 and 2578 on animal health, R/2109, 2021 and 2614 on beef and veal, and on R/863/77 on CAP prices.
THURSDAY 12TH MAY—Further progress in Committee on the Finance Bill.
Motion on the Social Security (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order.
FRIDAY 13TH MAY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY 16TH MAY—Until 7 o'clock, consideration of Private Members' motions.
Afterwards, Second Reading of the Post Office Bill.

Mrs. Thatcher: May I raise two points with the right hon. Gentleman? He will observe that we have used our Supply Day for one of the urgent matters raised last week, namely, agriculture. Is it the Lord President's intention to provide a foreign affairs debate in Government time before the Belgrade Conference, and has he any news about whether we are likely to have a debate on the Bill relating to direct elections before the recess?

Mr. Foot: On the second matter, I cannot yet tell the right hon. Lady the date of the introduction of the Bill relating to direct elections. On the first question, I know that she has previously made representations about a debate on foreign affairs prior to the Belgrade Conference

and I suggested that it might possibly be a Supply Day subject, but I shall consider the representations she has made for it to take place in Government time, without making any commitment here and now.

Mr. Powell: As the three EEC subjects proposed for Wednesday are all substantial and are largely distinct from one another, is it proposed that there should be more than the usual hour and a half allotted to the importan debates on these matters?

Mr. Foot: The proposition at the moment is that we should have only the hour and a half, although I realise that they cover different topics. On the other hand, some of the matters will have been touched upon—perhaps not exhaustively—in the debate which take place that afternoon on the Supply Day. Some of the subjects would certainly be in order then, and might be discussed. I fear that I cannot promise any further time to discuss these subjects.

Mr. George Cunningham: Can the Lord President provide time in the near future to discuss the situation of highly specialised hospitals which find their budgets constricted by entirely local considerations? Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that it is more than a fortnight since he told me that I should be hearing from DHSS Ministers about the situation at St. Mark's Hospital? I have not so heard.
If my right hon. Friend cannot provide time for discussion of this on the Floor of the House, could he use his influence to obtain a clear, concise account of the case for and against the closing of a ward of St. Mark's Hospital? I am confident that when that is done, the case against closing it will be seen to be overwhelming.

Mr. Foot: Of course I am fully aware of my hon. Friend's concern about this matter. He raised it in the Easter Adjournment debate and I promised him then that I should make some inquiries which I did. When the House resumed I informed him about some of the discussions. I will certainly make fresh representations to see whether we can deliver to my hon. Friend as speedy an answer as possible.

Mr. Channon: As the Lord President is unable to give an undertaking that there will be a debate before Whitsun on the direct elections Bill, is it the Government's intention at least to produce the Bill before Whitsun? If not, can it seriously be suggested that the Government are using their best endeavours to get the Bill through in a reasonable time?

Mr. Foot: I certainly understand the interest in the House about the Bill. Furthermore, I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I cannot, however, add anything to that which I told the right hon. Lady earlier.

Mr. Spearing: Reverting to the EEC documents for next Wednesday—I believe there are seven—can my hon. Friend be a little more explicit about the timing? We could surely have a debate lasting an hour and a half on each document allocated in the Orders of the Day if we chose. Will the Lord President confirm that the document on CAP prices is the substantive regulation which puts into force the prices recently agreed by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in Brussels?

Mr. Foot: I should like to look at the actual resolution on the CAP prices before I answer my hon. Friend, who is certainly an expert on these subjects. If the full time were to be taken on all the EEC propositions and measures that come here, the time of this House would be inordinately consumed. I have always accepted in discussions with my hon. Friend and others who are especially concerned about the matter that we have not solved the problem of providing proper time for these matters to be debated. However, I must say that next Wednesday we are not proposing to extend the time beyond that by which it would normally be extended—namely, an hour and a half after the vote, if there is a vote, on the Supply Day motion.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Will the Leader of the House keep in mind that it is a long time since we had a debate on immigration and that there is a strong feeling, both inside and outside this House, that we ought to have one fairly soon, preferably before the Whitsun Recess?

Mr. Foot: I know there is a request for debates on immigration and on some of the immigration regulations that have

come forward. I am afraid that I cannot add anything to what I have indicated generally. I recognise that there is a desire in various parts of the House for these debates.

Mr. John Mendelson: In view of the widespread concern about the unemployment of young people, which was again highlighted on a very important and useful television programme last Sunday morning to which the Secretary of State for Employment made a significant contribution, will my right hon. Friend now give priority for a debate in this House in which the Secretary of State could again discuss some of these points and give Members an opportunity to make their contributions?

Mr. Foot: Of course, we recognise the importance of the subject. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment has made clear, discussions have been taking place between the Manpower Services Commission and his Department and the Department of Education and Science to produce proposals, especially on the question of unemployment amongst young people. I cannot yet indicate the exact timetable on which those measures will be brought forward. Obviously, these are matters which will have to be debated in this House when they come forward, and it may be that some of the debates on the Finance Bill can also touch on these questions.

Mr. Adley: Does the Lord President recall that on a number of occasions recently the Minister of State, Department of Industry has refused to answer questions on Post Office matters on the basis that he has no ministerial responsibility? On the radio this morning, however, he was happily making a statement as the Minister responsible for the Post Office and telling us all what a marvellous thing it was that our telephone bills were to be reduced. Would it not be a good idea if the Lord President invited his hon. Friend to come to this House and make a statement, so that those of us who feel that those who can afford telephones are unfairly having a rebate, while those who cannot afford to send a letter are not able to get a reduction of postal charges, will have an opportunity to question him?

Mr. Foot: That is a very churlish reception of the announcement that has


been made. I do not believe that many people up and down the country would think that that was a very good contribution to the discussion. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that there are certain divisions of responsibility as to what may be said in the House and the responsibilities of Ministers for these matters as compared with those of the people who are operating the industries concerned. I do not believe that my hon. Friend has broken or merged that responsibility in any sense.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call only the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who are on their feet. There is an important statement to follow.

Mr. Mellish: Perhaps I can be helpful to my right hon. Friend. There are a number of experts in this House—not too many—who want to discuss the EEC documents and all that pertains to them. I think that we all appreciate that it is a great heartache to the Members of the House generally when important matters of this kind almost go by default because they are not taken until after 10 o'clock at night. We all understand that. But what has just been illustrated—seven orders, I think, have been mentioned—in reality represents 10½hours' debate, which anyone with any common sense will know that is quite impossible to contemplate from 10 o'clock at night onwards.
Morning sittings have been sneered at and jeered at in the past, but it seems to me that, through the usual channels and discussions with those interested in these matters, morning sittings could be used. There could then be debates for those who are concerned and any votes on the matter could take place at the appropriate time in the later part of the day. Is not that helpful, or is that a waste of time as well?

Mr. Foot: I am sure that my right hon. Friend is seeking to be helpful, although he knows that the experiment of morning sittings which was tried some years ago was not a 100 per cent. success. Therefore, I am not sure that we should repeat it now. However, I am not saying that we exclude the possibility.
Two Committees are considering these matters now. One is the Committee on European Legislation &c., and it is reporting

to the House. It will suggest any improvements that it may have for dealing with this kind of EEC legislation. The Procedure Committee, too, can take the matter into account.

Mr. Gow: Since, last month, the Price Commission recommendations in regard to the publicly owned British Gas Corporation were rejected by the Government, and since, this month, the recommendations about the prices charged by the publicly owned Post Office Corporation have been accepted, will the Lord President agree that there is a need for a debate about the rôle of the Price Com mission pending its abolition?

Mr. Foot: As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware—if he is not, his question is remarkably inapposite—a Bill on the Price Commission and price controls is going through the House at the moment. I do not know where he got such an extraordinary idea as the abolition of the whole Price Commission.

Mr. Canavan: May we have a debate, either on the Floor of the House or in Committee, on my Early-Day Motion No. 302, praying against the Statutory Instrument which would give the Secretary of State for Scotland power to discontinue courses at Scottish colleges of education? Would it not be reducing parliamentary democracy to an absolute farce if the Secretary of State were to take these powers without parliamentary approval, when the proposed college closures and mergers have been opposed, not only by Parliament but by the whole Labour and trade union movement in Scotland?

[That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Teachers (Colleges of Education) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1977 (S.1., 1977, No. 634), dated 29th March 1977, a copy of which was laid before this House on 7th April, be annulled.]

Mr. Foot: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will take into account all the representations from my hon. Friends on the subject and the views which were expressed in the House about it. But those consultations are not yet complete. It was a question of consultations when the House debated the matter.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Is the Lord President aware that there is growing


concern in this country about the inadequate sentences available to the courts in dealing with crimes of violence, rape and wilful damage against property and the person? While I appreciate that we have had debates on law and order in the not-too-distant past, will the right hon. Gentleman allow time for a debate on this very important subject, which is of growing concern to the majority of people in this country who are law-abiding and who see that the law does not provide them with the protection which is required?

Mr. Foot: I make no comment on the merits or demerits of that matter. I cannot promise an early debate on the question, although measures are going through the House on which some of the hon. Gentleman's points can be raised.

Mr. Tebbit: So that hon. Members may draw their own conclusions about when we might see the direct elections Bill, will the Lord President at least arrange next week for a statement by the Government on what conclusion the Government drew, and the Cabinet agreed, as to what the House wanted, following the two days of debate, by way of an electoral system in that Bill?

Mr. Foot: I gather that the hon. Gentleman is asking for a Government statement on that question. I cannot add anything to what I said to the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition on that subject. We said that we should consider the debate. We were asked to provide a period for a debate, which we did, and the Government are still considering that debate.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is the Leader of the House aware that I was told last week in a Written Answer that the report of the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration had been sent to the Prime Minister as long ago as 4th April, though the right hon. Gentleman seems to have been unaware of that fact? Is it not time that we had a statement on that report? Is the Leader of the House aware that it is widely rumoured that there is some uncomfortable criticism in that report of the Secretary of State for Social Services on his handling of the junior doctors' pay settlement last year? Does he not think that it would be as

well to get that matter cleared up as quickly as possible?

Mr. Foot: I have not read the report. Therefore, I cannot accept any secondhand or third-rate criticisms of my right hon. Friend which might be contained in the report and relayed to the House by the right hon. Gentleman. The Prime Minister replied to him a few minutes ago, saying that he would look at the matter if he put down a Question, and that is what we shall do.

NORTHERN IRELAND

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. J. D. Concannon): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in his statement on Monday, undertook to keep the House informed about events in Northern Ireland. He has thought it right to stay there for the time being and has asked me to give this report on his behalf. I am appreciative of the few hours' leave today.
We are now half-way through the third day since the stoppage announced by the United Unionist Action Council was due to come into effect. The first day was a day of uncertainty. A number of people did not turn up for work: these were mainly in the engineering sector of industry. The police reported numerous complaints of intimidation, but most of these were telephone threats which the police were unable to check. On the second day the turn-out was better, but some of the intimidation became more blatant.
Today, the indications are that the turn-out for work has been the highest yet, with most firms reporting a very good attendance. Traffic is flowing freely, although the police have had to clear some road blocks—usually of telegraph poles or trees—and there have been some suspect or hoax car bombs. Although the harbour at Larne has been closed, most public services have continued to operate in a near-normal fashion. Bread and milk were being delivered normally this morning.
The story of the last two and a half days is of the people of Northern Ireland behaving with courage and determination, often in the face of threats or intimidation, by firmly demonstrating their desire to work normally. In this resolve they


have been encouraged and supported by the good sense and moderation of responsible leaders of opinion in Northern Ireland, including those in this House, to whom I am pleased to pay tribute. Trade union leaders, shop stewards and other workers' representatives have also given courageous leadership to their fellow workers. This also applies to the CBI and the various chairmen of the chambers of trade and commerce. It is these workers who are showing the bravery to protect their jobs and thereby to protect the whole economic future of Northern Ireland.
I would like also to pay tribute to the RUC, which has given further demonstration—if that were needed—of its ability to act as an impartial and effective force. The Chief Constable has assured my right hon. Friend that his force, supported as necessary by the Army, will continue to do its utmost to ensure that all those who wish to do so can continue to go to work.
Finally, to those who are understandably concerned about the continuing terrorist violence in Northern Ireland I repeat the message given by my right hon. Friend on Monday. We are not complacent about the present security situation. We appreciate the feelings of frustration in Northern Ireland from a community that has had to suffer so much for so long. But we are convinced that the method chosen by the UUAC and its supporters is not the way to improve matters. It distracts the security forces from their efforts against the Provisional IRA, and a continuation of present tactics by the supporters of the strike will only aid the terrorists.

Mr. Neave: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's statement about the turnout for work today. We join warmly in his tribute to the courage and good sense of Northern Ireland working people as a whole, and we assure the Government of our full and continuing support for necessary steps to protect their right to go to work in peace.

Mr. Concannon: I thank the Conservative Opposition for the support that they are giving us. I readily assure the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State and my other colleagues in Northern Ireland are fully appreciative of that support.

Mr. Powell: Does the Minister of State recognise that the course of events of the last few days is proving the commitment of the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland to constitutional action and to the maintenance of the rule of law? Is he aware that it is the determination of my hon. Friends and myself to see that they are not disappointed in putting their confidence there?

Mr. Concannon: May I once again thank the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends for the assistance and good help that they have given us in this situation? I find it frustrating, as the Minister in charge of commerce and manpower in Northern Ireland, that the police and security forces, including all the detective forces that we have there, are now deployed in looking into active intimidation instead of being able to get on with the job of detecting the terrorists and putting them behind bars.

Mr. Mellish: Is my hon. Friend aware that all of us on this side of the House, too, warmly welcome the fact that the strike has not had the evil effects which some predicted and that a lot of common sense has been shown? There have, however, been some peculiar reports, which he may be able to clarify. For example, some reports have said that the power workers—this is a key matter—were coming out on strike and others have said that they were not. Can my hon. Friend say anything more specific?

Mr. Concannon: The power workers have been pushed to the front in this issue, which is not their wish. I should just like to say that the power stations are working normally and were fully manned this morning.

Mr. Freud: This is clearly not the time to ask searching questions about contingency plans. I should like the Minister to accept that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I totally support the actions of the Secretary of State. We salute the courage of the people and the officers of Northern Ireland, and in particular we pay tribute to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, for which this must be a desperately difficult and delicate assignment.

Mr. Concannon: I thank the spokesman for the Liberal Party very much


indeed. I can only add my compliments to the House. It has been fully behind the Secretary of State in the actions he has taken, and we are very appreciative of that fact. It has shown everybody in Northern Ireland that the House of Commons, bar one Member, is on a certain side.

Mr. Flannery: Does my hon. Friend agree that the lessons of the last few days in Northern Ireland seem to indicate that the two communities are democratically reaching out towards one another in order to achieve a lasting peace, and that those who are exacerbating the situation are now clearly seen to be who they are and what they are? Should not one of them, in the interests of democracy in Northern Ireland, carry out his threat to resign from this House?

Mr. Concannon: I do not think that I should go as far as my hon. Friend on that. I do not know what reports have reached the House, but in the Northern Ireland Press and on television last night a Member of this House has now firmly committed himself to being on strike and has stopped drawing his parliamentary salary.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call the three hon. Members who have risen.

Mr. Goodhart: I echo the support that my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) has given for the actions so far taken, but can the Minister give the House an assurance that there will be no discussion with the leaders of the strike on any constitutional issue at all as long as the strike continues?

Mr. Concannon: One of the leaders of the strike is a Member of Parliament in his own right. It would be unconstitutional if a Member of Parliament who came to meet a Minister was turned away. But if the hon. Gentleman is referring to the bully boys and paramilitaries, I can give him that assurance.

Sir Frederic Bennett: The Minister's opening remarks reported, rather refreshingly, that during the first two days and on this third day things were getting better for people going to work. He also said that unfortunately, on the other side

of the coin, during the first two days intimidation and threats grew. Are they continuing to grow, or is there a welcome sign that this counter-trend is not going on and that those concerned are beginning to realise that intimidation will not work?

Mr. Concannon: My reports confirm, and it seemed so to me as I travelled through Belfast on my way here this morning, that a lot more people are going to work. Also, my information is that the intimidation and picketing have been stepped up rather aggressively. I believe that one of our colleagues suffered an unfortunate occurrence in one of the disturbances this morning.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I join my right hon. and hon. Friends in welcoming the Minister's statement. Is he aware that I was in Londonderry last weekend and that, when meeting members of all sections of the community in Northern Ireland, I found hardly one person who supported the present strike as a way of achieving their legitimate demands of the British Government? In saying that, may I ask the Minister yet again to state very clearly that it is the British Government's intention to step up their campaign against the terrorists? Only by doing this and removing them from the community will it be possible—I join the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) in saying this—to return Ulster to peace and prosperity so that that very fine and loyal Province can play its part in the economy of the United Kingdom as a whole.

Mr. Concannon: Certain things have been happening on the security front, and they were reported by my right hon. Friend on Monday. I do not think it would serve any useful purpose for me to go over the figures, except to say that we are certainly not complacent about the security situation in Northern Ireland and that all that can be done will be done to rectify it.

BILL PRESENTED

LOCAL AUTHORITIES (RESTORATION OF WORKS POWERS)

Mr. Secretary Shore, supported by Mr. Secretary Rees, Mr. Secretary John


Morris, Mr. Joel Barnett, and Mr. Reginald Freeson, presented a Bill to amend provisions of certain orders made by virtue of section 254 of the Local Government Act 1972 so as to restore the powers conferred by those provisions on certain district councils: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed [Bill 1161

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS &c.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the draft Family Law Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 1977 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Thomas Cox.]

The House proceeded to a Division—

Mr. HARPER and Mr. THOMAS COX were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the draft Stock Exchange (Completion of Bargains) (Northern Ireland) Order 1977 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Thomas Cox.]

The House proceeded to a Division—Mr. HARPER and Mr. THOMAS Cox were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it.

Question accordingly agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put,
That, at this day's sitting, the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister for the Adjournment of the House may he proceeded with, though opposed, for a period after Ten o'clock equal to that spent on the Proceedings on the Motion relating to House of Commons (Services).—[Mr. Thomas Cox.]

The House proceeded to a Division—

Mr. WALTER HARRISON and Mr. DORMAND were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it.

Question accordingly agreed to.

OFFICIAL REPORT (PRINTING)

4.19 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I beg to move,
That this House doth agree with the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) in their Fourth Report relating to the size of Hansard

Mr. Speaker: I should announce that I have selected the amendment in the names of the hon. Member for Newham South (Mr. Spearing) and other hon. Members.

Mr. Foot: Perhaps I should begin by making it clear to the House that the issue at present is whether the size of Hansard should be changed from the large royal octavo—the present size—to the A4 size, which is slightly larger, as recommended by the Services Committee.
The House will recall that when we last discussed this matter on 15th March, my hon. Friends the Members for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) supported an amendment which, in effect, asked the House not to agree the Services Committee Report until more comprehensive information had been provided, including evidence from the Officers of the House.
That amendment was carried and the Services Committee complied speedily with the wishes expressed by the House.
The members of the Committee conducted their investigation into the proposals of Her Majesty's Stationery Office afresh, taking evidence from House and Stationery Office officials, and in their Fourth Report, published on 31st March, reaffirmed their recommendation that Hansard be changed to A4 size. Now that this further information is available, I hope the House will feel able to come to a conclusion fairly swiftly this afternoon.
I should like first to dwell briefly on the points raised during the last debate, especially by those who supported the amendment. Both my hon. Friends felt that if one of the arguments for change was that standardisation led to economies, Hansard should be looked at not


in isolation but together with all parliamentary papers. The more papers included in standardisation, the more the savings would be.
I do not deny the logic in this suggestion. The Report makes it clear, however, that the present Parliamentary Press will be re-equipped in two new presses, the first to be set up in 1978–79 and the second a couple of years later. Re-equipment has to be phased over this kind of time span to ensure the necessary continuity; time is needed, for example, for the installation of equipment and training of staff.
The first press will be devoted principally to Hansard and the second will print all the other parliamentary papers. The page size of Hansard must therefore be dealt with as a matter of urgency whilst there is no immediate need to consider the page size of the other papers as that equipment will not be ordered for a while—not until after the Hansard press has been in operation for several months.
The Services Committee points out that this will provide an ideal opportunity for HMSO to inform the House of the savings achieved before approval is given to further changes. This seems to me a sensible way of proceeding which the House will welcome. I am sure that HMSO would of course prefer a standard size for all publications—it would further reduce running costs and permit greater flexibility of machine use—but this decision, I repeat, will be left till later.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham. South conceded that there probably was a case for standardisation, but asked why it should be A4, and not A5 which is half the size. Because A4 would mean that fewer pages would need to be printed and consequently fewer pages to be collated and stitched, it would give not only a quicker service but also the maximum savings in running costs. Standardisation of all parliamentary papers to either A4 or A5 would make a large capital saving, but A4 would make a substantially greater saving in annual manpower costs—£256,000 as against£87,000.
In the previous debate, other hon. Members were not convinced that the proposals would be welcomed by the

House authorities, and so we carried out the further instruction of the House on that matter. Evidence was heard from the Clerk of the House, the Principal Clerk of the Table Office, the Librarian, the Editor of the Official Report and the Deliverer of the Vote. The Clerk, as Accounting Officer, fully supported HMSO's proposals because of the savings to public funds, and the other Officers said that A4 would neither significantly increase their costs nor reduce their efficiency. In addition HMSO consulted 26 libraries and all would accommodate A4 size; most users have adjustable shelving. There might even be a small reduction in shelf space.
I should like to underline the main advantages of the proposals, but before I do, I should like to emphasise how urgent it is that we should have a decision. Further delay will place the equipment programme at risk. Already the uncertainty is having, as the evidence indicates, a detrimental effect on the feelings of the staff of the Parliamentary Press. HMSO must replace its present plant; it is not only obsolescent but also inadequate because of the great growth in parliamentary printing, which is now equivalent to printing three national newspapers a day. I have always thought myself that we have seen a remarkable achievement by HMSO and that the House has, to some degree, taken it for granted.
As these figures indicate, there has been an enormous increase in the amount of work that has been done and is likely to have to be done by the printing presses. Quite simply, as the evidence indicates, without a change the present high standard of service given to this House by HMSO is in danger of collapse.
Indeed, some of the Officers from the Stationery Office who gave us evidence deplored, as Members of the House have deplored on a number of occasions, the times when there has been a deterioration in the supply of papers to the House. One of the reasons for their wishing the proposals to be accepted by the House is that they believe that it is only by that method that we shall be able to restore the highest standard of service to the House which they have performed in the past.
Given that we must have new equipment, the question is what sort it should


be. Her Majesty's Stationery Office proposes to use the change to take advantage of the new technology. This is both sensible and would give a better service. To take maximum advantage of the new technology equally would mean moving to metric equipment, which is becoming increasingly standard in the printing world. This would involve large savings to the public purse in both capital and running costs. Of metric sizes, A4 seems to offer the maximum savings and the quickest service.
I believe that the evidence given to us in the latest proceedings, although in some respects no more than a reiteration of what we had heard before, underlined what Her Majesty's Stationery Office is concerned about, what the Services Committee is concerned about, and what I am concerned about, not to mention the view of the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Cooke) who has given such a great deal of his time to these matters.
What we are all concerned about, even more than the question of reducing the cost, is improving the service to the House and making sure that we do not permit the collapse in that service which is prophesied by some of the experts if we do not take account of the warnings that have been given.
Some hon. Members have put their names to an amendment today which
welcomes proposals for improving printing arrangements for Parliamentary Papers, but requires any change in their sizes to be measurements no larger than that of the present Official Report (Hansard)".
I should have thought it clear on the evidence to anyone who has studied the Services Committee's Report that this amendment is self-contradictory. HMSO and the Services Committee agree that HMSO will be in a better position to give a quicker, cheaper and more efficient service to the House if it changes to the new technology. This means the metric system, the system which is becoming increasingly standard and which is therefore cheaper and easier to operate.
The A sizes are established and tried machines. A4 is bigger than the present size of Hansard, whilst A5 is smaller. As I have already explained, A5 would cost substantially more to operate and would take longer to produce because of the greater number of pages involved.
So what alternative does the amendment leave us with? We could order the new machines to print the same size as now, but the machines would have to be tailor-made and therefore expensive to produce. Manning would be difficult, because they are not standard and the manpower arrangements would have to be separately negotiated. All in all, Hansard would be more difficult to pro-produce and the process would take longer. That cannot be described, in my opinion, as an improvement in the printing arrangements. Therefore on the test on which the hon. Members have put down the amendment, I believe that the amendment should not be supported.
This House wants an accurate record of its proceedings as soon as possible the next day. If HMSO can improve its service and save public money, I do not think it would be wise for the House to try to stop it. In view of these general arguments, I hope that the House will now, at last, be prepared to accept the recommendations of the Services Committee, this being the third occasion on which we have put them forward. I hope that it will be "third time lucky".
I do not complain that many of my hon. Friends, and the House as a whole, by their vote, asked that further information should be given and that the matter should be looked at afresh. We were asked to make certain that, before we embarked on the change of altering the size of Hansard, we were making the right choice. I have no doubt that we are making the right choice, and that is also the view of the Services Committee which has gone into the matter with considerable care, all the greater because of the instructions of the House on the last occasion.
As I have indicated before, although these may be a matter of taste, in my opinion, the new size of Hansard will be more convenient that the older one. That is one of the reasons for my support of the proposal and why I believe that the position has sometimes been misunderstood.
I repeat that what we are proposing is not a bowing down to the god of standardisation. We are not proposing that, nor are we making proposals solely on the grounds of costs, although I suppose it is perfectly proper for the House, along with other people in the country, to take


account of costs. What we are proposing fundamentally is designed to ensure that the services to the House from the Stationery Office shall be sustained at the highest possible standard.
The standard has been extremely high over many years. Over recent years there has been some deterioration in some cases—not because of the failures of the staff but because of the circumstances themselves and because of the great pressures on our printing arrangements. As one who has spent most of his life in the newspaper trade, I certainly believe that the printing of Hansard is very fine achievement indeed, but each year it becomes more difficult to accomplish. If we were to neglect all the advice that we have taken on this matter, to set all that aside and to say either that we insist on this size of Hansard or something smaller, and that we will accept no other proposition than that, the House of Commons would make a prize fool of itself. I hope very much that we shall not do that.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'welcomes proposals for improving printing arrangements for Parliamentary Papers, but requires any change in their sizes to be measurements no larger than that of the present Official Report (Hansard)'.
The House will not want me to take very long over this, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Some of us have already been electioneering today and wish to do so after this debate. But I wish first to emphasise my full agreement with what my right hon. Friend said about the Parliamentary Press. It is, I think, one of the modern miracles of the age, and it is essentially a part of the machinery of democracy.
The quality, the reputation and the excellence of parliamentary papers—albeit sometimes late, for reasons of which we know—are very important not only to the House but to Government Departments, to the public and to representative bodies, as well as to individual citizens throughout the land. But it should first be recognised that the demand for a change in size, as far as I know, has not come from them.

It has not come from the consumer of any sort.
Secondly, we are not really discussing the size of Hansard just like that. It is the size of all parliamentary papers, in effect. If the recommendations which we are asked to approve today are implemented, it will be quite clear that, once we have Hansard in A4, the scope for economies in the second Press, which my right hon. Friend mentioned, for the vote bundle, for White Papers—and, indeed, even possibly for Acts and Bills—will be such that there will be pressure to change them to A4 as well.
I suggest to my right hon. Friend that the effective choice will be made today, although there may be some formality—it is rather like the procedure with the car park—because once we change Hansard to A4, everything else will go to A4 as well.

Mr. Foot: It will not be a formality, certainly not if I have anything to do with it, as I hope I shall for many years to come. It will be as I have said and as we have proposed. If the change is made, it may influence future decisions, but the House of Commons will retain its right later on to decide whether the same rules are to be applied to the other documents.

Mr. Spearing: I do not contradict my right hon. Friend in a de jure sense, but, having set up one press for A4, the idea is indeed present in the Select Committee Report that the presses should work together for flexibility and all the rest of it. The pressure and arguments in favour of going to A4 for all parliamentary documents will be very much stronger, and I do not think that my right hon. Friend would disagree with that. He almost said as much in his intervention.
Although it may seem rather curious that the House should be debating this highly domestic topic, in essence it is much more important, because here we have the needs of modern technology and for maintaining speed dictating over what I would claim to be the needs of the consumer. It may be that many hon. Members have no strong feeling either way about whether we should proceed to a larger size, but I maintain—this is the real reason for my moving the amendment—that for the needs of those who


use these papers, the larger size, with more words per page and a greater difficulty of movement, is likely to be almost certainly less convenient.
Imagine a Committee of the House upstairs when we have the original Bill, a White Paper, an amendment sheet and the proceedings of the few preceding days and juggling with sheets of that size instead of having the existing handy sizes which have been traditional for White Papers. Select Committee reports and everything else. I put it to my right hon. Friend that at least there is a division of opinion on this, and we are at least justified in saying that.
This is the third debate on the subject, as my right hon. Friend said, and in the last debate 175 hon. Members against 83 asked for more information. The information that we have amounts to figures and estimates of capital and cost savings over the existing system. Let us have all the new technology that we can have—I am not against that at all—but surely if the technology is new, it can provide for the needs of the consumer at the same time.
My right hon. Friend said that changing to A4 would speed up delivery. It may well be that that would be so. We do not know the extent to which that would be the case, because it is partly a subjective judgment. I do not think that it will be known unless and until the actual change takes place.
The other argument rests on cost.

Mr. Foot: I am sorry to interrupt again, but I think it is extremely important that the question should be properly understood. Supported by others who have great experience in the House and who have carried out these great services to the House to which my hon. Friend pays proper tribute, we are recommending that the services to the House can be improved by what we decide to do, whereas alternatively there would be a great deterioration in the services if we did not do it.
In this respect the evidence given, for example, by the Editor of Hansard is of great importance, and the House should take account of it. I recommend hon. Members to read the whole of this evidence, but I quote just one sentence from it:
I very much hope, and therefore I support the Stationery Office proposals, that the

new plant and machinery will help us to get back, in part at any rate, to our previous service to the House.
It is important to recognise that it is the service to the House and to hon. Members that lies behind these recommendations.

Mr. Spearing: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and would not disagree with what he said. Perhaps he is straining a little. There is nothing in what he said with which I disagree, but surely what was referred to was not necessarily a change to A4 but standardisation.
I fully admit—and, indeed, agree—that standardisation of size is the feature that will probably help the House in terms of speed of delivery. I am not saying that large royal octavo, the size of the present Hansard, may not be marginally slower to produce. I admit that it may he. What I say is that standardisation on large royal octavo for everything, which is the purport of the proposal, would at the same time assist delivery, speed and reduce capital costs, which are mentioned in the report of the Select Committee.
It is to those aspects that I now wish to turn, because we are told that the savings with A4 would be fairly substantial. They would be substantial in terms of running costs. The table indicates a figure of something over£300,000 a year. But if there were to be standardisation on the present size of Hansard, the savings would also be quite considerable.
An answer to a Question which I received yesterday shows that the savings in running costs with large royal octavo would be£166,000 less than they would be with the proposed A4 size. The A4 size would achieve a saving of£256,000, and for the large royal octavo the savings would be£90,000.
This is what we are really talking about. This is the difference between us on this issue. I do not say that the saving of money is not important. What I say is that a difference of£166,000 is really not all that great in relation to the figure of£6 million for the St. Stephen's Press, plus the whole of the running cost of the House of Commons.
I dare not estimate the costs of running this House and, indeed, of their Lordships' House together. It must be


very substantial indeed. Are we saying that an extra £166,000 for standardising to the size of the present Hansard as against A4 is what should decide the issue? Should not the convenience of the House and of users also have some part in the matter?
I am not challenging the figures that have been given. My right hon. Friend will no doubt agree that it may be marginally more difficult to produce a standardised Hansard size, but surely it is not so much more difficult than standardised A4. That is the burden of the case.
I do not want to detain the House long. The present size of parliamentary papers is handy and convenient. The present size of Hansard has been with us since the series started 130 years ago. There have not been any complaints. In fact, as my right hon. Friend said, it is universally admired throughout the world. If we change the size, it will be for the needs of technology. My right hon. Friend will come across many places where changes are advocated and they look all right, but, rather like the little finger, it will not be until the changes have taken place that we shall realise the impact of what has happened.
I suggest that there is a good argument for accepting the amendment, although my right hon. Friend may not agree with it. The savings would be marginal in relation to the total cost if we standardised on the large royal octavo—the present size of Hansard—rather than on A4, which is the recommendation of the Select Committee.

4.43 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: As one who had to take the Chair for some part of the Select Committee's investigations, I had the opportunity of asking, I hope pertinent questions of all those involved in the production of Hansard and other papers which are produced in the service of this House.
I should point out at the outset that I was greatly impressed by the unanimity—whether printers, Stationery Office representatives, Librarians, Clerks of this House or anybody else—that the propositions which we have the opportunity of putting into effect would not only make a great improvement in the economy

of the supply of our parliamentary papers, but, to take up the point made by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), be a great help to the technical people and that therefore we should accept the recommendations which they had made. The only reason why the technical people should make this request is to enable them to serve us better. We should be putting obstacles in the way of those who serve us so well and who are trying to serve us better if we went against the whole mass of their collective evidence that A4, which is not an inconvenient size of paper, would be good for Hansard and the service of this House.
It is true that Hansard as such has not changed in format for many years. Indeed, it has never changed. But I ask the House to recognise that the output to be recorded has changed very much. I am not absolutely sure what the factor is, but, including Standing Committees, the volume that is now put out must be a factor of five, six or more than the annual volume that was put out when I first entered this House just under 30 years ago. Therefore, I feel that, to accommodate the huge output of valuable deliberations in this House and its Committees, a bigger format is now called for. That will enable us to produce the reports without having very small, thick volumes, of which large numbers have to be bound together, until in time perhaps we get books which are thicker than they are wide.

Mr. Spearing: The point made by the hon. Gentleman has some substance. But the reports of Select Committees are not printed by the Official Report; neither are those of the House of Lords. Therefore, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is some flexibility and that the question of volume is not as pressing, particularly if there were standardisation, as he suggests?

Dr. Bennett: I was referring particularly to Standing Committees which, as we know, have proliferated to a great extent in recent years. If the record of the deliberations of our colleagues is to be on one format, surely by this time a larger page is not inappropriate. The page size which has been selected and recommended, whether we like it or not, fits in with the metric phase into which


we are now entering. Indeed, it is already more or less familiar to us in that most parliamentary papers, other than Hansard, are of approximately that size.
It would certainly be more convenient for Members if the Vote bundle, which we shall consider later, and Hansard were of the same size. Surely stowage in Members' own accommodation as well as in public accommodation would be greatly facilitated. I am referring to convenience to the consumer, not to the producer.
Reverting to the main burden of what have to contribute to this discussion, having taken the Chair in the Select Committee and put a number of questions to those whom we were examining, I was profoundly impressed by the incredibly high degree of agreement not only among printers, but Librarians and, indeed, our Clerks, that this new size was desired. It is surely not without significance that it was an almost unanimous decision of the Services Committee that we should adopt the A4 size. Therefore, I strongly commend this decision to the House. It has been worked out in detail and owes nothing to imagination or fantasy. It is an earthy decision which we should be ready to accept with, I hope, some gratitude.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I rise to support the amendment so ably moved by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). I believe that he put the argument very well.
I respect the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Dr. Bennett), who has put his position clearly. My hon. Friend said that he was impressed by those who gave evidence to the Services Committee. However, I take a totally different view from that which he has put to the House.
My hon. Friend referred to the unanimity of decision for this change by Members of the Committee. Indeed, he referred to evidence given by Clerks of the House and by the printers. But what he did not talk about was the evidence given by Members themselves, which is most important. Whether Hansard is distributed throughout the world or is used by Librarians or Clerks, as far as I am concerned the real importance of Hansard is the use to which it is put by Members of this House.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: Surely my hon. Friend does not consider that the members of the Services Committee were not reasonably representative of the Members of the House?

Mr. Winterton: I can only remind my hon. Friend of the decision that was taken when the previous debate on this matter took place. As the hon. Member for Newham, South reminded us, after the supposedly plausible arguments put forward by those in favour of the change the House decided by 175 to 83 that it was not impressed by the argument and required further information. Many of those who voted on that occasion did not vote for further information but voted against the proposed change lock, stock and barrel. If there is a Division this afternoon, it is my intention to vote against any change.
I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham and the Lord President that the same Committee that recommended the change that we are now debating recommended a change in the format of Early-Day Motions. I went to some trouble—if Mr. Speaker's figures are correct, it seems that the House went to some expense—to draw to the attention of the House the total inadequacy of the new proposal. I am delighted that the Services Committee has decided to terminate the experiment and to present Early-Day Motions in the traditional form.
The Lord President and my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham talked about speed and parliamentary papers. Unless we have an industrial dispute at Her Majesty's Stationery Office, we can always obtain a copy of Hansard containing the previous day's business by approximately 10 o'clock in the morning of the following day. That seems to be perfectly adequate. If a Member has worked in the House until midnight, or even into the early hours of the morning, he does not get to this place before 10 o'clock. If he does, perhaps he is being a bit of a fool and not getting the right amount of sleep to enable him to deal properly with the complicated matters that are dealt with by the House. On most occasions the service offered by Her Majesty's Stationery Office is entirely adequate.

Mr. Foot: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has read every word of the further information for which he asked.
I am sure that he has read the whole of the report. If he has done so, he will have read what the Editor of Hansard said. The Editor said that he wanted assistance in ensuring that he could give a good service to Members. That is why he supports the recommendation.

Mr. Winterton: I accept the right hon. Gentleman's point but I return to the argument that was lucidly advanced by the hon. Member for Newham, South. The hon. Gentleman said that perhaps we should not be considering changing the size of Hansard but changing the size and format of all parliamentary papers to that of the existing Hansard. Perhaps the Editor of Hansard would admit that if that were done his problems would be answered and the right service could be provided to the House by Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
Much emphasis is placed on cost. It would be interesting for a costing to be made of the time that the House has spent debating this trivial, domestic matter. When we have record levels of unemployment, raging inflation and the grotesque and dangerous problems of Northern Ireland, I find it extraordinary that the House is spending some hours debating this unimportant and trivial matter. It would be interesting to know how much it is costing the House to function while the debate is taking place.
I return to an important matter that was mentioned by the hon. Member for Newham, South. Surely Hansard is primarily a service to hon. Members. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman when he said that if a Member is making a speech in the Chamber and needs to refer to various columns of Hansard it is very much easier to do so with the existing size than it would be with the very much larger size that is proposed in the Services Committee's recommendation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham talked about the huge weight of legislation pouring out from this Chamber and the Standing Committees and Select Committees. It is my understanding of my own party's policy—it has even been muttered by some Labour Members—that the pressure of legislation will be reduced Many of us want less Government, not more Government. Surely the

amount of verbiage coming out of the Chamber and the Committees will be very much less. Surely the decision whether to adopt a larger format for Hansard is irrelevant because there will be less and less legislation and, therefore, reduced pressure on the Hansard reporters and Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham was addressing the House a remark slipped out that perhaps epitomises the bureaucratic phobia in respect of metrication. There is no doubt that people are being carried away with metrication as they were carried away with decimalisation. It would be interesting to add up the cost of going metric at such a fast pace. It would be interesting to know how much it is costing the country. It is money that we can ill afford.
I find the present size of Hansard ideal. It suits me as a Member. I am speaking as an individual Member. I understand that if there is a Division there will be a free vote on both sides of the House. The present Hansard is ideal for my use. I find it convenient for my bookshelves at home and in my office at Norman Shaw, North. I accept that the shelves can be adjusted. I find it convenient as it goes through my letter box at home. If the larger size were adopted, I wonder whether the tax man would be prepared to set against tax the cost involved of changing one's letter box.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: I know that my hon. Friend is experienced in local government. What was his experience of the minutes of the local authority passing through his letter box? Mine came through perfectly easily.

Mr. Winterton: My hon. Friend must have a large letter box. My copies were always placed on the doorstep. That is because my letter box was not large enough. I was a regular attender at the Shire Hall, Warwick, when I served as a member of Warwickshire County Council. Very often I would pick up my copies of the minutes and other documents on my frequent visits to the Shire Hall.
The cost argument may hold some water but I believe that there are countervailing costs that can be set against that argument, costs that undermine the cost argument and the grounds that have been advanced by those who favour this change.
I fully support the amendment that has been so ably moved by the hon. Member for Newham, South. If any change is necessary, its hould be made so that all parliamentary documents are of the same size as the existing Hansard. If there is a Division, I shall be happy to vote for the hon. Gentleman's amendment.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. Paul Hawkins: I went on the Services Committee as a convinced Conservative not only with a large "C" but with a small "c". Like my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), I like things that I am used to and I like to stick to them. During the proceedings of the Services Committee I asked questions against the background that I have described. I can only say that I was totally convinced that the new size that is proposed is the size that will enable the House to be best served.
I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield has really read the evidence. My hon. Friend should have seen that there is no machine of modern technology that can produce the present size of Hansard and save money. The machine would have to be a one-off job. Everyone knows that such a machine will not be satisfactory.

Mr. David Crouch: My suits are always one-off jobs, and they are exceedingly satisfactory.

Mr. Hawkins: My suits have to be one-off because of my waistline, but that does not mean that in this case we do not have to build prototypes. We must also remember that in this instance there is a time limit.
Perhaps it is not realised how close Hansard has come to breaking down, and we must remember that Hansard has given the House so much good service. It is not only a matter of replacing obsolete machinery. It must be replaced with machinery which has been tested and which is known to give a satisfactory performance. If we are to produce our publication with the aid of modern technology, this cannot be achieved with Hansard in its present size. There is no machine which can produce Hansard in its present size and which at the same time can achieve savings.

Mr. Spearing: Has the hon. Gentleman seen Question No. 31, when an expert witness was asked whether it was not the fact that thousands, and indeed millions, of books were produced in the world in approximately the Hansard size by modern printing processes, and the answer by the expert was in the affirmative. The hon. Gentleman will also see from Appendix 3 of the Fourth Report that the figure in respect of "All Royal 8vo or all Large Royal 8vo" was£2·3 million capital cost against a cost of£1·86 million for printing on A4 size.

Mr. Hawkins: That evidence was given to us, and I understand that there is no machine in existence which can now produce the present size of Hansard, with the use of modern technology, which will save money. That surely is an important question when we are considering the taxpayers' interests.
Furthermore, we must bear in mind the human element. There are men who work on Hansard who are under great stress. There are periods of time in which there is a tremendous rush and everybody is put under great strain. The Deliverer of the Vote has given evidence to this effect, and we know that the machinery for the publication of Hansard and other parliamentary papers on occasions has almost broken down. Those who have served on Standing Committees will know that Members are not always able to obtain copies of Hansard proceedings for previous sittings.
I began as a convinced adherent of the present size of Hansard. However, I became completely convinced that we should change to the new format. We must think of those who work in the excellent printing press that provides our publications. We must give them this facility if they are to continue to serve the House as they do, to give us such excellent service and to see that our papers are up to date.
This is a service of which the country can be proud. We can be proud of the fact that copies of Hansard appear on our breakfast tables with such regularity. But since that system is in danger of breaking down, we must move to fresh machinery and change to the new size. I repeat that that is my convinced opinion having previously opposed such a move.

5.7 p.m.

Mr. David Crouch: I wish to remind my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) that the Fourth Report makes clear that the Deliverer of the Vote wanted to maintain the achievement of the early delivery of Hansard and other parliamentary papers, including the Journal—not by 10 the next morning, but by the earlier hour of 7.30 a.m. I give that information in order to correct any misunderstanding which may have arisen from what my hon. Friend said regarding the excellent service which hon. Members are given by the St. Stephens Press in the many publications that issue from it.
I wish to emphasise how greatly I recognise the excellence of the present service, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) agreed. I also wish to tell the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council that I have read the proceedings from the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) extremely carefully. If I hand my copy to the right hon. Gentleman, he will see that I have marked almost every paragraph in respect of certain criticisms on various points.
I take this opportunity to thank the Select Committee for going into this matter so thoroughly under the chairmanship for part of the time of the Lord President, succeeded later by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Dr. Bennett). I am grateful that Members of that Committee are present for this debate, again showing their interest in this matter.
I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield that this matter is unimportant. Certainly the history of publishing the proceedings of the House of Commons is most important. Therefore, it does not matter whether we have one or more debates on this subject, but the matter must be decided by the House. We are grateful to the Committee for reporting to us and for giving its views.

Mr. Leslie Spriggs (St. Helens): Since the hon. Gentleman appears to have so much knowledge of the proposals in the report, will he say whether it is a slower process to produce the old form of Hansard compared with the production of the proposed publication?

Mr. Crouch: It is not for me to try to speak with expert knowledge. I leave it to the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President, to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Cooke) and to others to take on that role, but the report emphasises that the present machines are obsolete and as much as 16 years old. In printing terms that can be regarded as obsolescent. We are told that the printing demands have risen by a very high figure within recent years. Although the Hansard load has increased by 61 per cent., total printing by the Stationery Office has increased by as much as 500 per cent. Incidentally, it is a matter which the Government can put right by their own actions without having to repair deficiencies in the printing department.
I was impressed by the detailed questions put to expert witnesses in the Select Committee. However, I do not think the Lord President was right this afternoon in his judgment and in his recommendation to the House. I appreciate that the Lord President has given much thought to this matter and has taken note of the Committee's findings, but I do not think that he has got the matter right. The Committee commented on the views of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, and it is clear that the Stationery Office officials have made up their mind. They have decided that there is a good case for printing Hansard on A4 paper. They are not concerned about the reader, or apparently about us as Members of Parliament who are their customers. They have taken no consumer test of Members of Parliament and others outside the House who comprise the consumers. There has been no consumer research or indeed production research.
I do not deny that the Controller finds great advantage in moving to the larger size format, but the House has been asked by the Lord President to approve this change and twice the House has turned it down. The Select Committee has reconsidered the matter and we are grateful for its additional work.
The evidence given by the Controller points to the fact that the basic reason for the proposed change is that the existing machines cannot cope with the job. Since the service is said to be at risk, the view is that we must take advantage of new technology and the Controller


wishes to move to new computer composition and to photo-printing. So far so good. That is an excellent recommendation from the "production director" to the "sales director" as it were, but the sales director, if there were one in the Stationery Office, might reply "Ah, but I shall never be able to sell it to the customers".
Obviously the Stationery Office officials managed to persuade the Committee and the Lord President that there are good production reasons for a change. But such reasons were not advanced by any other witnesses—the Librarian of the House, the Clerk of the House or the Principal Clerks. Nobody has said that this might be for the advantage of the reader.
Yet I find a remarkable clue, which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield has also found. We are moving into the metric world. Metrication has caught hold in this country in many areas where the public are not really aware that changes have been made, because of the momentum of metrication.
I would dispute with the Lord President that it is essential to move to the A4 size for Hansard. It will reveal to him that I have read the report very carefully when I remind him that the Controller said just that. On page 2 I found the following very revealing remark. When asked about the move to the new size, the Controller said:
I think that there has been a certain amount of misunderstanding here. It has been suggested by a number of people that if you move to the new technology it is absolutely essential to move to the A4 size for Hansard. This is not so. The reason why we want to move to A4 size—and it is, of course, for the House to decide whether we should do this, and I should like to emphasise that—is that the machines in the new technology are in standard commercial practice produced in metric sizes.
We see that the momentum of metrication has taken over the Stationery Office, and this afternoon it could take over the House and overrule the requirements of Members. I shall have much more to say about that later. I see that you appear restive, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I find this very interesting, and I hope that you will, too.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir MyerGalpern): My only problem is that the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr.

Winterton) has told the House that he never comes to the House before 10 o'clock, because otherwise he will not have a reasonable amount of sleep. I do not want him to be kept up too late tonight.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I must correct your assumption. I said that I did not read Hansard before 10 o'clock. I very often come to the House before 10 o'clock, but I have a great deal of work to do before I delve into the mysteries of Hansard.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I distinctly heard the hon. Gentleman refer to the number of hours of sleep that hon. Members needed. I think he alleged that if hon. Members came here before 10 o'clock in the morning they would be suffering from loss of sleep.

Mr. Crouch: For a moment when my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield made his remark about not coming here before 10 o'clock I thought that he was speaking about coming at 10 o'clock at night, just to vote. But, on reflection, I know that he is not that type.
Metrication seems to be spreading into many areas. The Stationery Office wants it, so the House must have it. What will the Lord President persuade us to have next—kilometres instead of miles, litres instead of pints? Let him try that on the country. He might get away with the present proposal, but not with those.
Something else comes out in the small print. We are to have Hansard printed the size of the London telephone directory, though not as thick. That came out clearly in the evidence. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West, who is a pertinacious questioner on Cormmittees, particularly the Services Committee, put an innocent sounding question to, I think, the Controller. He asked what sort of work the St. Stephens Press would obtain when the House was in recess and there were no debates. The answer—I paraphrase—was "We hope to get work printing telephone directories".
Which assumes the greatest priority in the eyes of the Controller and those who work for him—the work to be done in the recess and the suitability the new technology and the new printing press for


the printing of the London telephone directories and perhaps others, or producing journals of the House in a way suitable to the House and most acceptable to Members? The Controller is properly anxious to get Hansard and the other journals for which he is responsible to the House on to a commercial footing. He wants to save money on printing and paper. He wants to buy standard machines off the peg. It is more convenient for him and for the Stationery Office to do so. He said in paragraph 28,
The printing industry will gradually go over to the 'A' sizes".
Will it? How very interesting!Therefore, we must go over to what the printing industry now wants.
Parliament is having a little pressure from outside to adopt a new procedure because it is more convenient for the machines and the people that produce this service to the House. The recording of the history of the House must be changed to look more like a standard London telephone directory or the London Gazette. Who wants to carry round a London Gazette? I know that the Lord President said that he often read the Spectator in bed at night. I notice that he said the Spectator and not the New Statesman. A remarkable change has happened to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not take only one Hansard. I invariably have two or three.

Mr. Hawkins: What about Playboy?

Mr. Crouch: It might be convenient for me to carry something like Playboy or Private Eye, which are about the A4 size. I cannot recall what Playboy looks like, but I know what Private Eye looks like. The Economist is the same size, which is quite convenient for a weekly journal and for a newspaper. We know that the Lord President has experience of newspaper production—mostly tabloids—but this place does not want a tabloid. We do not want something like The Economist, the New Statesman or the Spectator. We want a book, a journal, something to read, not something such as the London telephone directory to put on a shelf. The telephone directory is a very convenient size to be referred to occasionally or to ask a secretary to refer to occasionally.
If the printing industry finds it so convenient to move to standard machines because it will help the industry—though it may not help us, the customers—will it determine the size of the next edition of Shakespeare, the next edition of the Bible or the latest novel by Mr. Graham Greene or Mr. Kingsley Amis? Will they be printed in the London telephone directory format and style because it suits the standard machines, the only ones that appear to be readily available to printing presses throughout the country? I do not think so.
Shall we have the next eagerly-awaited memoirs from former occupants of Downing Street or other retired Cabinet Ministers on A4? I doubt it very much, because of a phrase used by the Librarian, who spoke about "user acceptability" in evidence to the Committee. That is a good phrase, which means "what the customer is prepared to take". I do not think that the customer is prepared to take this new inconvenient size.
Mr. Hansard, who started the printing of the House of Commons journals and reports of debates and proceedings, must have learned something about user acceptability. It was not because he was conservative that he did not change the size—the standard, roughly average book size—that is so convenient for the reporting of our proceedings. He never altered that page size and it was never altered by his successors who carried on the printing.
Hansard is not a weekly newspaper. It is not a newspaper at all. It is not even a weekly magazine. Hansard is a journal, a book to be read—not a directory to be left on a shelf. Hansard has not been going so very long. It is remarkable to realise that it began only in 1829—incidentally with no State aid. In 1855, when Mr. Hansard made so many losses that his publication was kept going by Members paying subscriptions along with clubs and public institutions, the Stationery Office agreed to take 100 copies. It needed them for the India Office, the Colonies and other Government Departments.

Mr. Hawkins: Was it because of its non-acceptability to its customers that Mr. Hansard went broke and could not sell his publication?

Mr. Crouch: Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to develop my argument. That was certainly not the reason. There were differences of opinion about how and when and even whether Hansard should be read by distinguished statesmen of the past. In those days—I do not wish to weary the House—it was often thought that the monarch should not know what was going on in this place. That is why the printing of our proceedings was not started until such a late date, 1878. That is not 100 years ago. That is when the Government gave the Hansard company a small subsidy of£3,000 which they increased to£6,000 two years later. Two years afterwards Mr. Hansard formed another company called the Hansard Publishing Union which had to rely not only on subscriptions but on advertisements to pay its way. I find that a remarkable piece of history. I am glad that there is no suggestion from the Select Committee that Hansard might pay its way and save us money by taking advertisements. The Hansard Publishing Union did not last long. It had gone broke within a year.
The object during the early days of the printing of our proceedings by Hansard was never a commercial one. It was never intended to make it a commercial success. The idea was to report Parliament in a manner acceptable to Members and others who wanted to read our proceedings and to study the making of history in this place. Disraeli was a great reader of Hansard. He gave some advice to a new Member of Parliament, John Pope Hennessy. His advice dealt with how to get on as a new Member. It was:
When the House is sitting be always in your place. When it is not, read Hansard.
There is no one present from the Liberal Party but I have to say that Gladstone refused to have Hansard in his house.
Parliament left the reporting of its proceedings as late as 1878 because it begrudged the expenditure. Let us not be so small-minded and produce a document, a journal, that is inappropriate for the job it has to do. Let us not fall for these arguments and statements from the Stationery Office—affected by some form of metrication madness—which tell the House how our proceedings should be reported and in so doing determine the attention and interest that will be shown

for the report. My digression on Mr. Hansard in some ways stems from the fact that one of his descendants is a constituent of mine, who possesses many papers which Mr. Hansard produced and which I lodged in the Library some years ago.
Mr. Luke Hansard, and subsequently, his son and grandson, knew more about readership than the Stationery Office. I want Hansard to be read, not filed away as a dusty directory on some shelf. I have been looking at some of the other documents available as commentaries on the political scene in this country and in the United States. One distinguished United States publication, "Foreign Affairs" is slightly smaller than Hansard. It is a book about the thickness of Hansard. "International Affairs" published by Chatham House is almost exactly the same size as Hansard. A new publication from Black wells in Oxford, the "Journal of Common Market Studies" is almost exactly the same shape and size as Hansard. Another foreign affairs commentary, "The Round Table" is also the same size. I do not accept the recommendation of the Lord President. I support the hon. Member for Newham, South.

5.26 p.m.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: I have enjoyed listening to my hon. friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch). I hope he will not mind my saying that I found the bits of his speech not intended to be serious most amusing. In addition I have learned much about Mr. Hansard. When we talk about the acceptability of the Official Report let us remember that when it was an unofficial report it was not acceptable to this House. Let us not think, just because we have had something around for maybe only 130 years, that we cannot change it. All sorts of things change in this House. A good example was the dress worn by hon. Members yesterday at the ceremony in Westminster Hall. I deprecate some of the clothes that people came in while, no doubt, others would do the same about my clothes today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury mentioned publications of roughly the same size as Hansard but he has not named one which is printed overnight so that hon. Members can read it


the next morning. That is an important point to remember. It is something which comes out clearly in the Select Committee Report.
I came to this controversy in the first of the three debates we have had and I shall try to avoid repeating my earlier remarks in what was I hope a modest but useful speech.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It was a brief speech.

Mr. Bottomley: It was certainly brief. There are, however, new points which need to be taken up. One concerns this question of saving£170,000 a year in running costs which would result from the standardisation of House of Commons papers. That is worth about£250 a year for a Member of Parliament. I can think of plenty of better ways in which that money could be used by individual Members rather than preserving a scattering of paper sizes and saying that we must maintain the present size of Hansard.
I remember taking part in the Committee stage on some opposed Private Bills in which we not only had to wrestle with great maps of East Anglia but also had the minutes of the previous day's hearing. If I remember correctly, they were on foolscap. I do not believe that any hon. Member in the past two years has raised a proposal to reduce the size of those minutes to the size of those minutes to the size of Hansard.
I have raised with my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) the question of local authority minutes. I have two sets of such minutes which come through my perfectly standard letter box. One set of minutes comes from the London borough of Greenwich, which I represent, and the other from the London borough of Lambeth, where I live. There is never any difficulty in getting these through the letter box. The only publication which causes difficulty, and which means that occasionally that my postman has to knock, is the weekly edition of Hansard. This sometimes happens when we have had a few all-night sittings. It is clear that if we had a larger format for Hansard its thickness would be reduced and, given a Post Office approved letter box, there would be no difficulty in the weekly edition gaining

admittance to my home. It is on grounds of acceptability to my letter box and acceptability in terms of costs that I support the Lord President's proposal.
The amendment represents one of those vain wishes that occasionally surfaces in this House when people seek to return to great glories and wish to be idiosyncratic. I may be doing a disservice in terms of motive to those who have opposed the proposal, but it seems typical of a failing that we have. We half permit ourselves to become efficient and provide a good service but suddenly we draw back and, in this case, say "Gosh it means going to A4—metrication." We fail to look at our post each morning.
I conducted a survey this morning and discovered that four out of five of the envelopes that I received contained pieces of paper of A4 size. I did not ask the Post Office to return them to the senders because I only wanted to receive documents of large crown octavo size, for instance.

Mr. Spearing: In our amendment we are suggesting a change—if there is to be a change—to a standardisation of size which would assist speedy delivery and save£90,000 a year. That is a constructive suggestion and does not represent a yearning for tradition itself.

Mr. Bottomley: If that is the case I am pleased to withdraw my remarks. Is the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) saying that the inconvenience is worth£250 for each hon. Member? If he is saying that he has a curious idea about convenience.
I have on my desk telephone books, copies of Hansard and minutes of Private Bills and correspondence. I do not find Hansard particularly convenient. It is difficult to carry on one's person unless one has a poacher's pocket. The crucial element seems to be receiving Hansard early enough next morning to see what the Prime Minister said or did not say at Question Time, or to see reports of what the Lord President said or did not say at Ashfield. That is more important than having to wait for something which is not as convenient as A4—bearing in mind that we shall be spending£250 a year for each hon. Member that we do not need to spend.

5.32 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I thought that the Leader of the House would come back with a recommendation that we should continue with the present size of Hansard. I was therefore surprised at the Government's proposal. The acceptability of a copy of Hansard to the letter-box of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) is not the right test for deciding the size of Hansard. I do not doubt that my hon. Friend's letter-box is capacious enough to take all sizes—metric and imperial. Surely the important issue is the acceptability of Hansard to hon. Members and members of the public who buy it.

Mr. Foot: It is not a question of this being a Government proposal. It is a recommendation of the Services Committee and of all parties and hon. Members who sit upon that Committee.

Mr. Bell: I appreciate that. I understood that the Lord President was commending the recommendation. To that extent presumably it has the support of the Government. I suspect that the payroll voters will come to vote with the Government when the bells ring. To that extent it is a Government proposal.
In our last debate my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury), who appeared to have a considerable knowledge of the subject, suggested that the throughput of parliamentary business was large enough to justify the purchase of new machines that were made to measure to the parliamentary preference. I do not see why preference should not prevail. Why should we not prefer one size to another?
This is just one more step in the bad process by which consumer choice is limited to that which machines can conveniently produce. In all departments of life one finds that economies of production are presented as a boon to the consumer when they actually limit choice. One could say that it is an example of Hutber's law—"better means worse."
I do not mind what is the size of the daily Hansard. I am more concerned about the size of the bound Hansard. It would be a great shame if we were to have the bound Hansard in the new size. I imagine that most hon. Members, like myself, take the bound volumes and have

them in their homes. Suddenly to jump up to the new size would be most disfiguring as well as inconvenient because it would be too large. One does not want books of that size. Even the present size is on the large side. It is not easy to hold in the hand. One almost needs a book-rest unless one lays it flat on a desk. To go bigger than that, to the size of a telephone directory, would create more problems. It would be like going back to Henry's Commentary if one expected people to read things of that magnitude today.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Cooke) will deal with why we cannot have new machinery made for us, with all the economies that would go with that. It would be possible and practicable to have machines of the size that we want and to achieve the economy of the standardisation of our printed papers. That disposes of the £250 that the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) mentioned. There is economy in the amendment. The figure given by the hon. Member is the figure that would be involved if the situation remained as it is.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: The economy I mentioned was the difference between standardising on the Hansard size and standardising on the A4 size. About£150,000 is involved in running costs but there is an additional saving of between£165,000 and£175,000 by moving to A4 rather than standardising on the Hansard size.

Mr. Bell: It is difficult to see why it should be cheaper, on a running basis, to use that size rather than the other. I can see that the initial charge for machinery—if we request a special size to be made—might be more. But I cannot understand why the running costs should be more. I suspect that statistic.
Why cannot we have the machines that we want? The enormous throughput of our parliamentary business is large enough to sustain special machines. If the Stationery Office wants recess business to finance the undertaking it will be in a splendid competitive position if it is one of the few printers that can offer publications in the size that is wanted. The Office would be able to charge rubies and diamonds for that service.

Mr. Spriggs: Many thousands of machines print journals or books approximately the size of Hansard. They are automatic machines. We would have no difficulty in producing a new high quality journal of that size.

Mr. Bell: I am sure that that is true. I am not an expert, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Hove, but he indicated that view in our last debate. I cannot imagine the situation to be otherwise. It is extraordinary.
I am sorry to suspect ulterior motives, but I cannot but believe that this has something to do with the great old campaign in favour of metrication for its own sake. I equit the Leader of the House of any obsession with metrication or, indeed, of supporting any of the Common Market fallacies and follies. We know that he is sound on these matters. However, perhaps he is the mouthpiece of others who are less wisely inspired than he. Perhaps he is the unconscious cat's-paw for evil men.
It is a great shame that we should be having this debate on the day on which the county councils elections are being held. Hon. Members on the Back Benches who are very much concerned in this matter are absent, with the result that it will be decided by the payroll vote.

Mr. Spearing: That is why it is being held today.

Mr. Bell: I very much hope not. However, that is the effect. On the last occasion that we discussed this subject, we had a general sentiment on the Back Benches of hon. Members who did not want this change and said so. We now have the concluding debate when they are all in their constituencies campaigning, and the matter will be decided by people who come in when the Division bells ring and do not know whether they are voting about the size of Hansard or about additional sanctions on Rhodesia.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West will satisfy me on these anxieties and explain why we cannot have the size that we want.

5.41 p.m.

Mr. Robert Cooke: The Services Committee is certainly no cat's-paw. Looking at its membership, I am sure that any reasonable man will agree

that it is composed of individuals with very strongly held and diverse views.
I do not know whether I shall be able to satisfy my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), but I have noted his points and I shall endeavour to answer all of them.
We have this debate in peak parliamentary time, taking precedence over sport and recreation—

Mr. Spearing: Shame.

Mr. Cooke: It is not a matter for shame. It is protected by a unique business motion that any time taken on this subject shall be made up on sport and recreation. However, I suspect that these two subjects have run one into the other. Any report of the Services Committee reaching the House for debate seems to be a subject for sport and recreation. The Services Committee makes no great complaint about that. Its members are the servants of the House, and I speak as a member of the Committee representing those Opposition Members who sit on the Committee, but I do so in no party political or official capacity. We are Members of the House who serve on that Committee.
I shall not dwell upon what people outside this House will be thinking, with the President of the United States about to arrive in London. I imagine him asking the Prime Minister, after he has been to the rest room or whatever a President does when he first arrives, "By the way, what is happening in the House of Commons?" and the Prime Minister replying "They are doing something very important, Mr. President, Sir. They are debating the size of Hansard for the third time, after which they will be going on to dis., cuss sport and recreation." I shall not speculate on what will be the President's reaction to that. However, I have no doubt that this debate will boost the sales of the Official Report, about which we have been talking.
On the subject of public interest, there is one matter about which, on behalf of the Services Committee, I must put the record straight. The Norman Shaw building has been referred to in this debate. It is true that the north block of that building was done up—"refurbished", to use Mr. Annenberg's immortal word—as the Architectural Heritage Year,


Europe pièce de résistance by the Department of the Environment in a rather lavish fashion. It embarrassed right hon. and hon. Members to find following a Press conference held by the Department, without inviting the Services Committee, that we were the inheritors of all this splendid work. But on the Committee we are ever conscious of our financial responsibilities, so that, when at last it was possible for the other part of Scotland Yard, Norman Shaw South, to be made available to the House, we had from the Government a statement that the south block could be available to the House but with a cash limit of£200,000 to cover the next two financial years.
I have done my best all day to get hold of Mr. Anthony Bevins of the Daily Mail who, in an article in his paper yesterday, wrote
MPs get their£3 million offices.
I hope that he sees the report of this debate and that he publishes as prominent a correction as possible to the effect that we are to have£200,000 spread over two years to provide facilities for hon. Members in the other part of the Norman Shaw building.
It is against that sort of enthusiasm for economy that the Services Committee is operating, we hope for the benefit of the House as a whole.
I suppose that I might be allowed one allusion en passant to a work of art which appeared in New Palace Yard in time for the Queen's visit yesterday. That has been subscribed for and paid for by private Members of all parties in the House, and I hope that, if the newspapers are interested, they will report that aspect of the matter.
I come to the questions asked by hon. Members in the debate. Everyone has been passionate about some of the inaccuracies which have appeared outside in relation to our efforts. I do not want to disagree passionately or to raise the temperature when dealing with the reasonable arguments of hon. Members. They cannot all be on the Services Committee. I do not think that many of them really want to be on the Committee. We have before us every problem under the sun, and we have to decide a great number of matters. We make reports about the more contentious ones, and the more interesting reports are debated in the House.
I do not want to detain the House very long in trying to answer some of the questions which have been asked, and I hope that hon. Members will forgive me if I run their speeches into one composite.
The real point about the proposal in the Select Committee's Report is that, in order to maintain a service which is at present being produced by the Stationery Office printers under immense strain, we must have modern machinery. Speed of delivery is absolutely crucial in this matter.
I have a sheaf of notes, and I could have made a quite entertaining reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). However, I shall not take up all that he said, and certainly I shall not ask him what he does in the early morning.
The really important matter is that we should get Hansard available for distribution at the earliest possible moment. I am sure that I carry all hon. Members with me if I say that, when I talk of the early delivery of Hansard for distribution, quite apart from when it reaches hon. Members or the Vote Office, it is vital that it reaches Government Departments. Every hon. Member complains that Government Departments do not take enough notice of the proceedings of this House. I hope that the Whitehall Mandarins have copies of Hansard delivered to their homes. I also hope that, as the underlings arrive at their offices, they find on their desks every morning clean copies of Hansard waiting for them to digest.

Mr. Spearing: We agree about a great deal of this—perhaps more than the House suspects—but does the hon. Gentleman accept that the support which my right hon. Friend the Lord President adduced for this proposal from the Officers of the House was for the new machinery and for standardisation and better speed, and not necessarily for A4? Did the Services Committee get an estimate from the Stationery Office about the difference in delivery times between standardisation on A4 and on royal octavo? If not, why not?

Mr. Cooke: I cannot answer that. But it was not pressure from the Officers of the House saying "Let us change to a bigger size". The Officers of the


House are conservative, as most of us are. No one likes changing traditions to which we are accustomed. What the Officers of the House wanted was an efficient service.

Mr. Spearing: We all do.

Mr. Cooke: I hope that the House will seize upon one childishly simple point which no one can fail to understand. It is that a small page size results in more pages, and it follows that they are more difficult to put together and get ready for distribution. It means that, to be efficient, Hansard must have the largest possible page size.

Mr. Ronald Bell: If the size was as big as a bed sheet, Hansard could be printed on very few pages.

Mr. Cooke: The sheets on the bed size would probably be inconvenient for my right hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr., Crouch) because he spends his time in bed reading Hansard. He has immortalised himself. He is the one Member of Parliament in history who reads Hansard in bed—and not just one volume, because he said that he takes three volumes to bed with him. He came to stay at my house but I did not notice him prowling round the house in the middle of the night looking for a volume of Hansard to read in bed. Indeed he was guilty—and we know this because dust was moved from volumes of books in the Tudor room where he slept—of reading books which were of A4 size.
I have here a specimen of an A4 size bound volume. There will be no need in future for the bound volumes of Hansard to be that nauseous pale blue. We shall be able to have dark green if we wish, and because the page size is larger we shall be able to hold it better. It is a more attractive volume to handle. It need not be so thick, although containing the same amount of talk and the same number of metres of words. Here it is. This book was supplied to me by the Library—and I believe the Librarians have a sense of humour because it is about the next subject for debate. Nevertheless, it is a specimen of the proposed size and it does not seem so unreasonable.
There are many other points that I could make, but I am sure that the House

would like me to come to a conclusion. However, I must deal with the question about telephone directories. The answer is that the Parliamentary Press will not be allowed to print telephone directories in its spare time if I or the Lord President have anything to do with it, because there will be no spare time if it is managed properly. If we standardise, more parliamentary papers can be printed by a proper and efficient plant under Parliament's own control and the plant will not have time for telephone directories.

Mr. Crouch: Can my hon. Friend assure the House that he did not receive the impression from the Controller of the Stationery Office that the Controller had at the back of his mind, as an important factor, the point that it would be good for the Stationery Office if he could obtain the printing of telephone directories in the recess? Can we have an assurance that that did not govern the decision on the size of Hansard?

Mr. Cooke: That is not the point. We want the presses to be employed and there would be slack capacity for printing things other than for Parliament only if Parliament put such restrictions on the Stationery Office as some hon. Members have suggested.
We have spent a long time on an apparently mundane subject—although we have had our entertainments this afternoon. However, we should come to a conclusion. Nobody could be more conservative than me or more anxious to preserve the hallowed traditions of Parliament. Long may Hansard continue, but in an improved and more efficient form. I therefore commend the Services Committee's Report to the House.

Mr. Foot: I dare say that the House does not want me to say any more but I must add just one sentence. I do not give a damn about metrication—as has been rightly surmised—nor am I concerned, in this instance, in seeing new technology advanced. I am concerned solely with ensuring that we obtain the best possible service for the House.
I think that the proposed new size of Hansard is an improvement on the old, but that is a matter of taste and we could go on arguing about it until the crack of doom without arriving at a final conclusion. I do not believe that any inconvenience to the House will result from the


change but if, after this third attempt, the House abandons the idea of accepting these proposals, which have been carefully worked out and examined afresh, and instead accepts the amendment there will be a serious deterioration in the service to the House. We shall be neglecting the advice of those who have gone into the matter carefully.
I do not believe that experts should have the final word in these matters. The final word should be had by the amateurs in the House. That is the purpose of this place—that occasionally proper amateur judgment should be brought to bear on the follies of the experts. However, that is not the situation here. If we neglect this advice from the Services Committee—advice that hon. Members of all parties have accumulated from experts who have been subjected to cross-examination of a detailed character—in the foreseeable future there will be a grave deterioration in the service that provides these documents to the House. If the House votes in that way the responsibility for the result will be on its own head.
The Services Committee has discharged its responsibilities properly. It has carried out exactly what the House required upon the last occasion that this was debated and it has brought back its report. I therefore urge the House, with all my strength, to adopt what we are proposing, not for any sinister reasons but because it is the best way to serve the interests of all hon. Members and of all those who depend on the proper production of
Hansard.

Mr. Spearing: My right hon. Friend is putting a charge on those who support the amendment. We are in favour of new machinery and speedy production and we are purely concerned about the matter of size. As the Chairman of the Services Committee, could my right hon. Friend tell the House how many hours a Crown edition would arrive after an A4 edition of Hansard? Is he saying that there would be a breakdown? Surely there is no difference in the matter other than that of size. What is my right hon. Friend worried about?

Mr. Foot: If my hon. Friend reads the whole report again he will find the full answer. The reply was also given today by the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Cooke). The time taken depends

on the amount of stitching that must be done. The amount of work involved in a book volume—if one can describe Hansard in that way—depends on the size of the pages and the number of words on a page. Therefore, having fewer words on a page means that more stitching must be done. That would contribute to the difficulties in providing Hansard and the extra printing that must be done to accommodate the increasing demands of the House. In his question and his speech today my hon. Friend has neglected all the evidence on that matter.
There is now much more printing to be done if the standard of services that we have enjoyed in the past is to be maintained. If that evidence is rejected there will soon be a grave deterioration in the service to the House. There will be more occasions when I, and future Leaders of the House, will have to come here to explain that there has been a hold up. If that happens the responsibility will rest upon those who rejected the united view of the Select Committee on this matter.

Mr. Crouch: Is the right hon. Gentleman charging the House not to criticise recommendations of the Select Committee? Is he rejecting the view that has been sincerely expressed in the House—that we do not want a directory?

Mr. Foot: I am not rejecting the right of the House to criticise. Nobody could conceivably accuse me of doing so. I have explained to the House today and on previous occasions that we understand its views. On the last occasion the House did not accept what the Services Committee recommended and asked for further evidence, information and a fresh consideration of the matter. That is what the Services Committee has done. The hon. Member for Bristol, West, the other Members of the Services Committee and I have carried out meticulously and faithfully what we were asked to do by the House following the criticisms that were made on the last occasion. Whether other Members of the Committee agree with me or not, that is my judgment.
If, having gone through all these procedures, the House rejects our recommendations, I repeat, as solemnly as I can, that the House of Commons will make a prize ass of itself and will condemn the House in future months or years to a deterioration of its services. If that happens, the responsibility will rest on hon.


Members who reject the recommendations. I know that they do not want that result, but it is my judgment and, I believe, the judgment of those who have listened to the evidence given by all those who serve the House that this will happen.
I do not believe for a moment that the evidence given by HMSO, the Librarian or the Editor of Hansard was given for

Division No. 121]
AYES
[6.02 p.m.


Bell, Ronald
Fookes, Miss Janet
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Glyn, Dr Alan
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Biggs-Davison, John
Goodhart, Philip
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Blaker, Peter
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Robinson, Geoffrey


Braine, Sir Bernard
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Rose, Paul B.


Brooke, Peter
Gray, Hamish
Scott-Hopkins, James


Buck, Antony
Grylls, Michael
Skeet, T. H. H.


Canavan, Dennis
Hall, Sir John
Spearing, Nigel


Carmichael, Neil
Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss
Sproat, lain


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Hooson, Emlyn
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Clark, William (Croydon S)
Hordern, Peter
Stokes, John


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Stradling Thomas, J.


Costain, A. P.
Lawson, Nigei
Summerskiil. Hon Dr Shirley


Crouch, David
MacGregor. John
Tapsell, Peter


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Marten, Neil
Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)


Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Molyneaux, James
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Monro, Hector
Torney, Tom


Drayson, Burnaby
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Osborn, John



Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


English, Michael
Page, Richard (Workington)
Mr. Leslie Spriggs and


Fisher, Sir Nigel
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Mr. Nicholas Winterton.


Flannery, Martin






NOES


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Bates, Alf
Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)
Rathbone, Tim


Benyon, W.
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Roper, John


Bishop, E. S.
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Bottomley, Peter
Lipton, Marcus
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
McElhone, Frank
Stott, Roger


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael
Macfarlane, Nell
Strang, Gavin


Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Tuck, Raphael


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Marks, Kenneth
Watt, Hamish


Davidson, Arthur
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Weatherill, Bernard


Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Wells, John


Dormand, J. D.
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick
Wiggin, Jerry


Faulds, Andrew
Newton, Tony
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Owen, Rt Hon Dr David
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Parker, John



Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Penhaligon, David
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hawkins, Paul
Perry, Ernest
Mr. Joseph Harper and


Henderson, Douglas
Prior, Rt Hon James
Dr. Reginald Bennett.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put:—

their own convenience. It was given because they serve the House and their evidence shows that they have considered these matters. They have asked the House to give them the power to serve us better. If we reject that request, the responsibility will be on our own heads.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 63, Noes 53.

The House divided: Ayes 53, Noes 55.

Robinson, Geoffrey
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)



Rose, Paul B.
Stradling Thomas, J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Skeet, T. H. H.
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley
Mr. Leslie Spriggs and


Spearing, Nigel
Tapsell, Peter
Mr. Nicholas Winterton.


Sproat, lain
Torney, Tom





NOES


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)
Roes, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Bates, Alf
Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)
Roper, John


Bishop, E. S.
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert


Blenkinsop, Arthur
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Bottomley, Peter
Lipton, Marcus
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
McElhone, Frank
Stott, Roger


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael
Macfarlane, Neil
Strang, Gavin


Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Tuck, Raphael


Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Marks, Kenneth
Watt, Hamish


Davidson, Arthur
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Weatherill, Bernard


Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutstord)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wells, John


Dormand, J. D.
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick
Wiggin, Jerry


Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Newton, Tony
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Faulds, Andrew
Owen, Rt Hon Dr David
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Parker, John



Hamilton, W. W. (Central File)
Penhaligon, David
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Harrison, Walter [Wakefield]
Perry, Ernest
Mr. Joseph Harper and


Hawkins, Paul
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Dr. Reginald Bennett.


Henderson, Douglas
Rathbone, Tim

Question accordingly negatived.

SPORT AND RECREATION

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

6.24 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Kenneth Marks): The previous debate on sport and recreation was unfortunately curtailed. I am sure that many hon. Members had valuable contributions to make to it but did not get the opportunity to do that. Therefore, I am sure that all those who are interested in this subject will be glad that my right hon. Friend the Minister responsible for sport has been able to secure time for this debate. I am not sure whether this is the second half, or the second leg. After the Division just now, I heard someone demanding a replay. But however we see it, this debate is very welcome. I shall be as brief as possible, so that as many hon. Members as possible will have the opportunity to make contributions.
The previous debate also tended to concentrate very largely on spectator sports. That was understandable, since it was timely then to discuss the subject of football hooliganism, which has been disturbing us all. Nevertheless, one of the main aims of my right hon. Friend's policy has been to widen the Government's interest so that it covered not

only sport but the whole field of recreation. I consider it essential that we should take such an interest if only because its scale shows what an important part it plays in people's everyday lives.
I mention angling as a particularly powerful example. It has nearly 3 million regular participants. Informal countryside recreation such as pleasure motoring, picnicking and sightseeing attracts enormous numbers of people. Two recent studies, for instance, suggested that on an average summer weekend in the South-East not far short of 3 million trips were made to the countryside and to stately homes. At the national level there is a broad estimate of about 275 million trips to the countryside per year in England and Wales.
During the previous debate reference was made to the size of the grant to the Sports Council, which this year is£11·5 million. I wish it could be more, as I do on so many other items of Government expenditure, but even in the present very severe financial constraints I think that it compares very favourably with the grant in the final year of the previous Administration.
However, the real point that I want to make is that the Sports Council grant is only a very small part of total public spending on sport and recreation. Taken in isolation, it presents a very misleading picture. It is the local authorities which are the major providers of recreational facilities.
The accepted figure for local authority spending on sport and recreation used in the rate support grant discussions for the current year was£332 million, a large proportion of which will be supplied by central Government.
In looking at recreation, the Government's rôle is not to control but to coordinate and to give a lead. In the previous debate my right hon. Friend explained the arrangements for coordination not only with his Government colleagues but with the numerous agencies that have an interest in the subject.
At the regional level a key rôle will be played by the regional councils for sport and recreation, which were set up last year. Their range of activities is very wide indeed, as can be seen from their terms of reference. They are, within a region, to provide a forum for consultation among local authorities and a wide range of user and other affected interests, to promote the general development of public participation and of appropriate provision to meet growing demands and, more specifically, to promote the preparation of long-term proposals for the planned provision of sport and recreation.
In all this the councils have due regard for the conservation of the natural environment, the needs of agriculture and forestry and the needs of people living and working in rural areas. At least half the membership of a regional council will come from the local authorities and one quarter from interests such as indoor sports, outdoor sports, general outdoor recreation, countryside conservation and land-owning and farming.
In the previous debate some criticism was voiced that sport was under-represented on the councils. I think that this criticism neglects the rôle of the local authorities as the major providers of recreational facilities. I think that I would also want to say that much of our problem in the past year has been in convincing countryside and conservation interests that sport was not over-represented. Some teething troubles have been inevitable, but our clear impression is that the councils are settling down well and have shown a commendable determination to make things work. I hope that both sides of the House can give them the support they need at the outset of their work.
The regional councils have a wide remit, but they will be giving particular attention to the part that sport and recreation can play in helping to tackle the problems of urban deprivation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment made an announcement recently about the additional resources that the Government are making available to encourage programmes and facilities in the inner areas of some of our major cities. The regional councils can, we believe, have an invaluable rôle to play in giving advice on the vital social dimension represented by participation in sport and recreation.
The Government's new approach to the inner cities comes at a time of exciting new thinking about recreation in urban areas. There have been two studies on leisure provision. The first, which was carried out by a research worker in my Department, was to find out more about the kinds of activities and policies that could help increase the recreational opportunities of those living in the inner cities, especially those who are socially, economically or physically disadvantaged. The second, sponsored jointly by my Department, the Department of Education and Science, and the Scottish and Welsh Offices, is on action-research experiments in leisure activities in four selected areas—Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland, Clwyd and Dumbarton.
We intend making every effort to publish the results of these two studies before the Summer Recess. This will ensure the early publicity and discusssion that I believe to be necessary. We are also going ahead with plans for regional conferences on the studies to be held in the autumn of this year.
There is a clear need, in the present difficult times, to ensure that recreation facilities are provided for those who need them most. There is tremendous potential for self-help in the community, and this must be harnessed through more flexible and sensitive attitudes on the part of local authorities. There is, as well, great scope for utilising existing under-used resources, such as parks, schools and church halls.
The question of joint use of recreational facilities in schools has been much in the news recently and it is a matter on which my right hon. Friend and I will shortly be having further discussions with our


colleagues in the Department of Education and Science. It is a subject to which we attach the greatest importance. We must make every effort to utilise resources at educational establishments for the benefit of the whole community, particularly at a time when economic stringency militates against the provision of major new facilities.
I know that additional costs inevitably occur which place further burdens on the already stretched finances of local authorities, and I for one appreciate the very real difficulties that often stand in the way of opening up these facilities outside normal school hours.
I worked for several years in a secondary school which was used as a youth club most evenings. On the other hand, I later went to a school which was three years old but whose excellent stage, with its very expensive lighting equipment, had never been used by the school or by any other organisation. I know that there may be staffing and cleaning difficulties, but while some local authorities have already embraced the concept of joint use, and have gone to considerable trouble to put it into practice, the response of others has been disappointing.
In parallel with the new thinking on the approach to recreation in urban areas, we shall also be publishing shortly a paper to stimulate public debate on the approach to leisure in the countryside. This has been prepared by the Countryside Review Committee, which is an inter-departmental committee of officials carrying out a wide-ranging review of policies affecting the countryside.
Our objective in the countryside was originally spelt out in the 1966 White Paper in which we said:
Townspeople ought to be able to spend their leisure in the country if they want to…the problem is to enable them to enjoy this leisure without harm to those who live and work in the country and without spoiling what they go to the countryside to seek.
The objective remains the same today. But the problem of reconciling the potentially conflicting requirements of recreation and other uses of the countryside has been made even more acute by the continuing growth in countryside recreation. How best to weave these various uses together is the subject of the paper that I have mentioned.
Of the many problems of recreation in the countryside, I shall mention but three. The first of these is the urban fringe—the area around our great conurbations. Definitions of this vary, but it can perhaps best be defined as the land between the continuous built-up areas of cities or large towns and the open countryside around. These areas are particularly important for recreation, especially for those who live in city centres and are without private transport. They are, therefore, relatively deprived of open space. Clearly, the urban fringe must provide valuable opportunities for recreation. But how should we go about providing such opportunities?
The Countryside Commission has already pointed the way with some pioneer experiments in the urban fringe of Greater Manchester and London. I hope that hon. Members for London constituencies will forgive me if I mention first the work going on in my area.
The commission has been helping with the reclamation of derelict land in river valleys, tree planting, general landscape improvement works and provision for informal recreation facilities, such as picnic areas, footpath and bridleway systems, and information facilities. The commission has also engaged the Civic Trust for the North-West to carry out an experimental project to promote recreational use, to encourage conservation and to stimulate local interest in the Tame Valley.
In the London area, two experiments have been set up in conjunction with local authorities in Barnet and Havering. This work is intended to minimise friction between farmers, local landowners and visitors through exploring management agreements and helping with minor physical works.
The commission has carried out many smaller projects in other urban fringe areas, and is at present undertaking a research study to examine the nature and extent of agricultural changes in urban fringe areas to identify the characteristics of farming in those areas and the differences between regions.
Besides the Countryside Commission's work, I should also like to mention the value of projects such as the Lea Valley Regional Park, which I visited a few months ago. There provision has skilfully


been made for a wide range of facilities in the recognition that some kinds of formal or indoor recreation may be valuable to widen appeal, increase usage on wet days, and provide a distinct blend of recreational experience. It contains a number of attractions which would be unacceptable in the deep countryside areas such as the national parks. These facilities include, for example, cycle tracks, artificial ski slopes, water ski-ing, equestrian centres, and a range of indoor sports.
In the wilder countryside beyond the urban fringe, I know that there is particular concern about the problem of recreational usage of our national parks. The Labour movement can be rightly proud of the part that it played in establishing these areas for public enjoyment. But I doubt whether the founding fathers had any idea of the weight of visitor and vehicle pressure to which the parks are subject today.
Our problem is that the national parks have two statutory purposes—the preservation and enhancement of natural beauty and the promotion of their enjoyment by the public. We have agreed that, in the last resort, priority must be given to the preservation of natural beauty. But, equally, we believe that much can be done to reconcile the two purposes by good planning and management.
One step is to try to spread the load more evenly. This involves the promotion of alternative areas for people to visit. The Countryside Commission has done considerable work in this respect by, for example, supporting the setting up of country parks, of which there are now nearly 150 in existence. The regional recreational strategies to be prepared by the regional councils for sport and recreation will take this work an important step further.
Much can also be achieved within the parks themselves by sensible management schemes. One story of successful co-operation between farmers and visitors took place in the Lake District. Known as the Lake District Upland Management Experiment—UMEX—the project started in 1969 as a joint initiative by the Countryside Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. From 1973 until it ended in 1976, the

work was sponsored by the commission and the Lake District Special Planning Board.
The aim of the scheme was to test whether, by means of a little financial encouragement to farmers, the interests of both farmers and visitors to the uplands could be met. This has enabled farmers to carry out small schemes to improve the landscape and enhance the recreational opportunities of the area. It has also enabled the effects of this work on the attitudes of farmers towards recreation and the landscape to be assessed.
A characteristic of the project was the flexible administrative arrangements, its success leading to the provision of a permanent Upland Management Service covering the whole of the Lake District National Park. Indeed, several other national parks authorities have now established their own upland management services.
Another area of leisure in the countryside which is assuming an increasing importance is tent camping and caravanning. This is now very big business as more and more people take to this form of recreation and holiday. Nearly 4 million people went camping in 1970, and it is forecast that between 5 million and 5½million will be doing so by 1980. In 1974 about 350,000 caravans were in use. Camping and caravanning is a very worthwhile, healthy activity, and I welcome the increasing opportunities that have become available to a wide range of social groups to take part in it.
Camping, however, does bring with it its attendant problems, particularly in the more popular holiday areas at peak periods of the year. Overcrowding of sites, with attendant risks to health and safety, traffic congestion in the approaches to sites and illegal camping, all pose severe problems.
Existing controls are inadequate, particularly in health and safety matters, and a new initiative by Government is clearly desirable. I do not, however, believe that all our problems can be solved simply by the improvement of controls. If supply and demand are out of balance, these problems will continue to exist. I recognise that many authorities are already under very serious pressure and that some of the more popular spots have now reached virtual saturation


point. We need, therefore, to take a new look at the problem to see how we can develop a co-ordinated approach to improving site provision, particularly in the more popular areas at peak periods of the year.
I want next to turn to a subject which I believe is important to outdoors recreation. I have already spoken about the great potential for leisure which exists in the countryside for the community at large. Education for its better use and understanding is vitally important. We must find ways to help both adults and children to understand and care for the natural evironment.
I have been pleased to see that a great deal of work in this field has already been done, and that interest in environmental education is growing fast, both at home and abroad. The pressures in the natural environment are growing through ever-increasing social and economic demands. We all know well that these pressures come from society's continuing drive for better living standards.
The Countryside Commission and the Nature Conservancy Council both appreciate the importance of environmental education in their work, and I am encouraged to see that they have actively promoted it. The Countryside Commission, for instance, has put a great deal of work into its visitor centres, which are designed to interpret the areas around them, to explain the natural characteristics of the area and, of course, to increase public awareness of the value of conserving them. The Countryside Commission and the Forestry Commission have also begun to develop a series of guided walks through areas of particular interest, often on a theme relevant to the characteristics of the area.
Education of the adult, I believe, will be far more effective if such education is begun in childhood. That is why I firmly believe that our main priority for environmental education should be in our schools. There is already a great deal of enthusiasm for the environmental education of children, as, indeed, is shown by the large number of study centres set up in our national parks. Indeed, I hope that local authorities and individual schools will consult more with the national parks and the Countyside Commission before planning these, but as yet there is no sign of their enthusiasm. We must look

carefully at how environmental studies are taught in our schools. This is something that we shall again be discussing with my colleagues in the Department of Education and Science. I do not regard this as a demarcation problem between two departments of Government. There is a need for both Departments to be closely involved in this work.
Although I can see a need for improved guidance in these matters, I should not wish to stifle initiative or to blunt enthusiasm. That is why I attach particular importance to the rôle of the voluntary organisations in the field and, of course, to the Government agencies which I have mentioned. The work they do to stimulate environmental education by aiding and encouraging schools and other bodies who are interested is invaluable. The Council for Environmental Education, for example, provide a means of communication between schools and teachers on the one hand and conservation and ecological groups on the other. I aim to keep that enthusiasm going, as I am sure that we can only benefit from a greater understanding and appreciation of our environment.
The White Paper covers a very wide field. In the course of the two debates my right hon. Friend and I have dealt with some of the subjects, but not all. One particular point of interest to me has been the increase in the facilities for the disabled—usually provided, I may say, not by other bodies but by the intelligence and enthusiasm of the disabled themselves. There are in my area—as I am sure there are in a great many other areas now—clubs for the multidisabled, and the standard they achieve in various activities is indeed remarkable.
The White Paper recognises that the physically handicapped must be given the opportunity to participate in recreational activities, not only by using facilities specially designed for them but by sharing as many facilities and activities as is practicable with their families and the community at large.
The Sports Council is empowered to make grants for the adaptation of existing buildings for sport and recreational purposes, including appropriate provision for the disabled. The council also produces advisory documents aimed at


bringing home to all those who provide sports facilities the necessity of taking account of the needs of the disabled.

Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones: I am pleased to hear my hon. Friend talking about the joint provision of facilities for the disabled. I should like him to use the term "integration of the disabled" in all sports activities and to bring to the notice of the Sports Council a very important report on this produced by Lord Snowdon. I urge him to press hard upon the Sports Council, in all its manifestations, to make this a living reality.

Mr. Marks: My hon. Friend has great experience and has done a great amount of work with the disabled, and these are points of which I shall certainly take note. I shall urge them not only on the Sports Council nationally but also on the regional sports councils, which I hope will be following this up.
I was mentioning some of the nature trails established by the Nature Conservancy Council and voluntary conservation bodies. They have made these trails suitable for wheelchair users and for the blind. The Government-sponsored quality of life experiments in the development of leisure activities, which I mentioned as being carried out in four areas of Great Britain, included among their projects programmes designed to increase or enhance the leisure activities of the disadvantaged, including the elderly and the physically handicapped. I hope that a number of these subjects will be discussed in the debate tonight.
The White Paper marked a significant step forward in our aproach to sport and recreation. We have a good record in carrying out the work which we said we intended to do, but the White Paper is not and should not be the end of the story. A great deal of new experimental work and thought is going on in the field of leisure provision. We must see to it that this is discussed, considered and then translated into action for the benefit of the whole community.

6.50 p.m.

Mr. Neil Macfarlane: The House and those involved in the organisation and running of sport and creation in the United Kingdom will

welcome this second opportunity provided by the Government to debate their White Paper. I shall try to be brief, because I was among those who were fortunate to speak in the debate on 6th April. Therefore, I shall bow to those many other lion. Members who want to speak and to others who are unable to speak on this occasion and whose absence tonight does not indicate their indifference to sport and recreation but signifies an enthusiasm to assist in the higher stakes being played for today in local government elections.
The Minister made many interesting observations. No doubt when the various reports and documents are to hand from the studies that are being carried out a statement will be made and we shall have an opportunity to debate each aspect at some length. I know that many people both inside and outside the House feel hard done by that we do not appear to debate these issues as often as we should.
The 20 pages of detailed plans in the White Paper give a whole new dimension to sport and recreation. As many hon. Members said last time, some of it is good and some is bad. I understood that the general view in sports circles is that the Government may have downgraded the influence of sports representatives. I want to talk about this matter, because it is not my intention to repeat what I said last time. No doubt the Minister will be eternally grateful for that.
The large organisations may in some respects be termed unwieldy and complicated. It could be that the individuality of sports governing bodies has declined because of the new amalgam within the regional sport and recreation councils to which the Minister referred on 6th April—the Sports Council, the Countryside Commission, the Nature Conservancy Council, the National Water Council, the British Waterways Board, the Forestry Commission and the English Tourist Board. That is a fair range.
One has only to look at the formation of each of the regions on this aspect of sport and recreation to become alarmed at the overall size and high percentage of local authority members. The Northern Region has a total of 124 members, of whom 63 come from the local authorities. In the North-West, out of a total of 130 members, 72 come from local authorities.


In Greater London and the South-East, which includes my constituency, there out of a total of 170 members, 95 come from local authorities. In the South the figure is 61 out of 121. It appears that there is a tremendous weighting of local authority representatives on those councils.
It has been suggested to me that when meetings take place, frequently the absentees are on the sport and recreation side, as opposed to the local authority side. Local authority representatives are always there, whereas those who come from the voluntary side of sport and recreation are not such regular attenders, for obvious reasons.
I hope that the Minister will be able to allay the fears of many people that the representatives of sport are the poor relations in the new regional councils and their agencies, because that is what the evidence suggests.
At the Snowdonia Mountaineering Centre at Plas-y-Brenin—I apologise to Welsh Members for the pronunciation—one might assume that the mountaineers would be well represented on the management committee, but a close look reveals that of the 14 members only two come from the British Mountaineering Council. About six or seven members come from the Department of Education and Science and the rest from the Department of the Environment. That underlines the genuine fear of many people about this matter. Does the Minister wish to intervene?

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Mr. Denis Howell): I shall do my best to reply not only to this speech but to the speech made by the hon. Gentleman three weeks ago. I should like to know the authority for his statement that sports bodies are concerned. I have now addressed every one of the 10 regional authorities. I addressed the last one only last week. This question has not been raised at any one of the 10 conferences that I have attended, where everyone has been present.

Mr. Macfarlane: I can provide the Minister with all the information that I have on this subject and tell him the source from which it has come. It has been mentioned to me on two or three occasions and to some of my hon. Friends. The Minister knows the sources with which I deal.
I turn now to the subject of centres of excellence, to which I referred in my earlier speech. Since that time the Minister has been good enough to give me a detailed answer regarding the anticipated expansion and progress of the programme. I am grateful for that. When he speaks later, will he refer to the plans for next year, when the Sports Council's financial assistance expires? How will the centres be funded and how will they retain their standards of excellence?
As for the Written Answer on 28th April, I must express surprise that the only new centre of excellence that has recently come on-stream is at Leeds, although it embraces six or seven centres of excellence if we allow for each sporting activity that takes place there. Will the Minister tell the House how he sees the coming on-stream of the others that he listed in that same Answer, because, rightly so, much store is placed on the new centres helping our gifted sportsmen and women to succeed in international events.
In recent debates most of us have tended to dwell on sport and sports clubs. I want to turn to the broader issue ct recreation and all that that topic involves. However, before doing so, I should like to refer to paragraph 32 of the White Paper, which states that
Concern has been expressed recently at the effect on voluntary clubs of substantial increases in rates over the last two years.
That opening sentence correctly identifies the widespread concern about this effect.
I know that the Minister has undoubted sympathy for the problem facing the clubs, but it is not borne out in the White Paper. The increase in rates in the past three years has created anxieties and hindered the advance of many clubs. I think that the Department of the Environment should take note of and heed the advice offered by the Central Council for Physical Recreation and look closely at the way in which many local authorities apply different yardsticks to clubs which want to expand or to develop social facilities to raise annual revenue. I am told that some local authorities apply a less than helpful approach, which does not encourage the voluntary clubs. Others help a great deal. But generally there is no pattern throughout the United Kingdom. Success in obtaining rate relief seems to depend on the area in which a


club is located. Frequently no distinction is made between a sports club and a social or leisure club. No one expects rating relief on a purely drinking club.
I ask the House to consider this problem as it affects the Dale Yacht Club, in Haverfordwest. It is set out in a letter dated 27th January 1976 to the treasurer of the Preseli District Council. Again, Iapologise to Welsh Members for any incorrect pronunciation of that name. The letter reads:
I write to inquire what the prospects are of obtaining some rates relief for the Dale Yacht Club. I enclose a copy of a letter concerning this subject, in which you will note that a discretionary rebate of 50 per cent. is suggested in the Government's White Paper.
In support of a claim for rates relief, you should know that:—

1. The Club is primarily a Sports Club.
2. The main source of income is Members' subscriptions, and profits made on social occasions. (In 1975, subscriptions amounted to£1,430, social occasions£320 making a total of£1,750 whereas profits on the Bar were£790 only. Rates for the same period amounted to£363.)
3. The Clubhouse is only open for two hours per week from October to the following Easter.
4. It is only used fully during the period of the schools summer holidays, i.e. mid-July to the end of August.
5. We provide two services for which no charge is made."

The reply from the district council is in these terms:
My council has again considered to what extent they should apply the discretionary provisions of Section 40(5) of the General Rate Act 1967. In view of your interest in this matter in the past I considered it advisable to notify you that they have again reiterated the policy which has existed since Local Government reorganisation in 1974 namely '50 per cent. relief to be granted in respect of hereditaments occupied by Clubs etc., for recreational purposes and not conducted for profit, excluding social, recreational and sporting clubs where premises are registered for the sale of intoxicating liquor'.
That example highlights some of the problems and confusion that exist.
A number of local authorities have been helpful to sports clubs. Manchester has granted the Amateur Athletic Association 25 per cent. discretionary relief, but the Birmingham application was turned down. The National Playing Fields Association was granted 50 per cent. charity relief. The AAA clubs have had a variety of answers from local autho

rities. The Badminton Association of England was turned down for any form of discretionary relief, and the applications of the Lawn Tennis Association (Hammersmith) and the British Mountaineering Council (Manchester) were also rejected. However, I must be fair and point out that a number of local authorities have granted discretionary rate relief. It is a complicated subject. I hope that the Minister will ask his Department to consider some of these aspects. There is a degree of confusion. Perhaps some pattern can be established—for example, a definition of what is a sports club and what is a leisure club. We are not concerned with any form of sports-drinking club.
The House of Lords Select Committee on Sport and Leisure stated that
Participation in informal out-door recreation is much higher than in sport; so too is its growth potential.
Recreation is a vast subject. It is possible to devote hours to the topic. Recreation embraces walkers, anglers, campers, cyclists, mountaineers, gliders, canoeists, pot holer, sub-aqua enthusiasts and parachutists. I accept that many of those groupings would see themselves as engaging in the more formal areas of sport from time to time.
In my remaining minutes I wish to consider the rôle of the water recreation and, especially the enormous contribution that has been made by the Inland Waterways Association. That is another aspect to which I am sure the Minister would have devoted some attention if he had had the time to do so.
The association has a band of 5,000 volunteers. They are all water recreation enthusiasts. In the past 15 years they have reopened and restored 215 miles of canals, as a result of weekend working. That is a remarkable achievement. It is the result of sweated labour and devotion. Their contribution to our environmental quality is not to be underestimated. I am told that most enthusiasts work an average of 48 weekends out of 52. They support themselves financially. They aim to clear another 200 miles between now and the early 1980s.
The association needs help and support from local authorities. I understand that many local councillors are not the easiest people to approach for the use of facilities and equipment. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will consider that


matter and ascertain whether any help can be offered.
The savings that have been made by the efforts of the association's band of volunteers represent an enormous contribution and measure of assistance to the environment. The hard-pressed local authorities must welcome what has been done.
To give the House some greater detail, the Ashton and Peak Forest Canal—the right hon. Gentleman is well aware of what I am about to say, because he opened the canal in 1974—was at one stage to be abandoned and filled in. The cost of infilling was estimated at£850,000. The volunteers restored the canal for£430,000. That canal has provided an additional 20 miles of recreational waterway.
The cost comparison of restoring or abandoning the Southern Stratford Canal, opened in 1964 by the Queen Mother, was quoted as£119,000 for infilling, but voluntary labour restored it for£50,000.
The Upper Avon Canal required an estimated£2½ million for restoration by contractors. The volunteers enabled it to open in June 1974, at a total cost of£350,000.
I have outlined an astonishing success story and I am sure that everyone will applaud this contribution to our recreational requirements. However, those involved in sport and recreation must not take it all for granted. First, there must be a better recognition for the volunteers. Their costs are many, while their labour rates are cheap. It has been estimated that the voluntary canal restorers operate almost 500,000 man-hours a year. Secondly, there must be better co-operation between the local authority and the volunteer. Thirdly, the Minister may care to say later how he sees future progress not only in restoring canals but in maintaining the existing canals.
There is a question mark over the Government's response to the Fraenkel Report. The estimates of what is required seem to vary between£30 million and£70 million. Those are estimates for restoring and maintaining the existing network. Perhaps the Minister will devote some time to those matters.
The White Paper refers briefly to the youth sports programme. I mentioned

an aspect of lack of Government coordination in the earlier debate. The Minister dealt with the matter at some length, and I am grateful to him for doing so. No doubt we shall have a chance of studying his speech at a later date and a chance to debate the matter. If we have a debate, there will be the opportunity to question the Minister a little more closely.
There seems to be a glaring omission in the White Paper, in the lengthy reference to the needs of young children. The National Playing Fields Association was created about 50 years ago for the purpose of pursuing those needs. During its inaugural resolution it was stated that
The Movement has, for its main objectives: First, the keeping of the very small children off the streets, by providing for them in congested areas, small playgrounds where there is no risk of injury, by motor or other wheeled traffic. And, secondly, by the provision of adequate playing fields for the masses of young people, who having no room themselves to play, rush in thousands to look on at others playing, or perhaps indulge in less desirable pursuits.
That might have been an appropriate subject for the last debate, namely, football hooliganism.
Those visionary statements must be contrasted with an article by Nick Balmforth in this month's National Playing Fields Association journal entitled "Playtimes". It states that
During a recent afternoon in Birmingham I noted down no less than seven different prohibitive notices each of which had beenliberally distributed around the estates:
KEEP OFF THE GRASS…PLEASE DO NOT PLAY HERE…BALL GAMES PROHIBITED…PLEASE DO NOT PLAY IN THIS AREA…THE PLAYING OF GAMES IN THIS AREA IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED…PLAY AREA—NO BALL GAMES ALLOWED…
And how about this for a classic: PLEASE DO NOT WALK OR PLAY ON THE GRASS. THIS AREA HAS BEEN LAID OUT AS AN AMENITY TO BE ENJOYED BY ALL THE TENANTS OF THE ESTATE. WILL YOU PLEASE HELP TO PRESERVE ITS APPEARANCE?
Ever get the feeling you're not welcome?
I draw that article to the attention of the Minister because I think that it makes an important contribution and mirrors the frustration that is felt by the child in the inner city area. It is perhaps the root cause of the potential hooligan.

Mr. Jerry Wiggin: My hon. Friend has raised an important


point. If I may say so, it applies not only to those in the inner city areas but those in the smaller centres and towns. Has the Minister given any attention to the opening of school playgrounds out of hours? It is a constant complaint in my area. It is pointed out that the playing facilities exist but that because of hooliganism and the lack of caretakers, for example, they are not available for public use, although they are provided at public expense.

Mr. Macfarlane: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is a matter that was dealt with at some length during the previous debate. It is a subject that has been touched upon by the Minister in various answers that he has given to me over the years. I know that it is a matter that causes his concern. I feel that there is probably a difficulty of co-ordination between those who wish to see facilities provided, those who wish to protect the environment, and the local authorities.
In my constituency there is a fine new comprehensive school. It had a marvellous sportsdrome built for it. Alas, it lies fallow for seven-eighths of the year. We tried to get the sportsdrome made available for the local community. It is necessary continually to pressurise local authorities. That is something that should be recognised by all who are concerned.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend has ignored the fact that grass is liable to wear. Headmasters and sports masters have had to be cognisant of the fact that grass must be available for the school teams. If there is too much wear by outside organisations, the fields will not be available for the school. Is it not time that far more all-weather playing areas were designed and built during the construction of schools?

Mr. Macfarlane: My hon. Friend makes a valid and excellent point. The matter that we were discussing before he intervened concerned the many schools that have new multi-purpose sportsdromes and the fact that those facilities are not being used sufficiently.
Will the Minister, in conjunction with the Department of Education and Science, urge all the agencies and local author.

ities involved in children and youth recreation to begin an urgent reappraisal of the objectives and measure the progress to date? I hope that he will urge upon his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science—the hon. Member for Lincoln (Miss Jackson)—who was the recipient of a penetrating open letter from Bob Campbell in the Sunday Times on 10th April, to wake up on this aspect of a national need.
The National Association of Youth Clubs has voiced concern to me over the omission and has commented that it is amazed that the White Paper makes no mention of the voluntary or statutory youth service in paragraph 13. It further states that in November 1976 it wrote to all the new regional councils for sport and recreation urging them to consult the voluntary Youth Service on the question of including its representatives on the councils. Sadly that representation has been ignored by all except one of the regional councils. The matter is worth investigating as it would appear that youth is not to be fully involved.
The Under-Secretary of State has made a number of important points. In some respects he has clarified the confusion that has existed over who is responsible for a number of issues. I ask the Minister, who is in charge of the Youth and Children programme, not to under-estimate the growing anger of the various authorities.
The White Paper covers many important matters that affect society. Almost two years have elapsed since that White Paper was first published. All those interested have now had a chance to examine the implementation of the Govenment's objectives, and policy is constantly evolving.
The biggest overall criticism is that the running of sport and recreation appears to have become fragmented through a number of Government Departments and agencies. This takes it further away from those who know how best to run sport and, unhappily, there is a tendency to waste valuable resources.
I hope that this second debate will enable hon. Members to participate in a wide range of subjects covered by the White Paper and, above all, I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to answer the many quesions that have been


posed to him in both debates. I certainly hope that he will take the opportunity to answer in greater detail than time permitted on the last occasion when we discussed this subject.

7.12 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Spriggs (St. Helens): I wish to take part in this debate because on the previous occasion when we discussed sport and recreation I sat in the Chamber for the duration of the debate and I and other hon. Members were not called to speak because of the limitations of time. 
We are grateful for the freedom that is allotted to us on this second occasion, and understand from the Leader of the House that if extra time is required tonight we can take advantage of it. Therefore, I hope that if any of my hon. Friends feel that they have a contribution to make they will do so. When I have made my contribution, I shall remain to hear other contributions. I am sure that we all have much to learn from our colleagues who have so much experience in sporting and leisure activities.
I was present at Question Time to hear my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary refer to the subject of soccer hooliganism, and he also mentioned Rugby League. Every week in St. Helens many thousands of people attend Rugby League and Rugby Union fixtures, and they greet those events with much enthusiasm, and they appreciate good clean sport.

Mr. Clement Freud: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it is due to the fact that soccer draws away the hooligans that other sports are as clean as they are? If there were no soccer, it is possible that the hooliganism would spread to badminton and ping pong. It it not a fact that there is a great deal of hooliganism around which is now being vested in soccer?

Mr. Spriggs: The hon. Gentleman is on a good point. My constituents have more sense than to behave badly at such fixtures. My constituents, to the tune of 30,000 and upwards, attend Rugby League games, which they thoroughly enjoy. Those fans come from all age groups in the population. When they leave those games they leave in good order because they observe first-class behaviour. It is a pleasure to hear the comments of my constituents when I speak to them on Saturday evenings following my parliamentary

surgeries. They are most excited when giving accounts of first-class matches at Wigan or Widnes or Warrington, and they appreciate a game that is well and decently played. I cannot understand why anybody should want to misbehave at sports fixtures and inflict bodily harm on anybody.

Mr. Marks: I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree that many of his constituents in St. Helens attend fixtures arranged by Manchester United Football Club. But does he not agree that it is surprising that of the number of people arrested after those matches involving Manchester United, few of the troublemakers come from Greater Manchester or from the St. Helens area?

Mr. Spriggs: The Minister is right to make that fair point. Often a town's population is blamed for bad behaviour indulged in by those who come into the area from outside. When I have kept observations on crowds at fixtures, I have noticed that the troublemakers are all strangers to me and are certainly not my constituents. I agree that where complaints are received about spectator behaviour, they usually involve people from an outside area. They are the people who rush up and down the streets and cause so much displeasure to local tenants and the local population. It is not right that they should be able to indulge in such behaviour.
I wish particularly to draw attention to the problems of hooliganism, vandalism, the inflicting of bodily harm and damage to property and to cases of thieving on the way to or from soccer games. Such behaviour is unacceptable to us all. If my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary sees fit to bring in legislation to deal with those offenders and if he frees the public from the terrible blight of vandalism, I know that the people of this country will support him in implementing rigorous legislation.
If the Minister has not been present to watch Rugby Union or Rugby League games, I hope that he will come to St. Helens. In general terms I believe that observation should be kept on the attitudes of crowds at Rugby Union and Rugby League matches and that serious consideration should be given to the present system of crowd control.
I have already said that many of my constituents go to these fixtures and thoroughly enjoy them as contributing to sport. I believe that those people should be able to take their children to watch those games with feelings of safety. They should be able to feel that no thugs will be present to employ the use of knives or to throw bottles or other implements. Surely the nation should give Parliament the power and the authority to outlaw such behaviour.

Mr. Freud: Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that if people were to play rugby or to watch more rugby that would eliminate hooliganism? Does he accord that to the greater numbers who appear on the field, or to the different size of the ball?

Mr. Spriggs: These thugs go to different parts of the country and enter sports grounds without any intention of watching a good game of any sport. At the moment soccer is in the limelight. Hon. Members are demanding action on behalf of not only those who play the game but those who watch it or live near the grounds or who try to run businesses in the areas near the grounds. All these people suffer from thugs who leave the grounds looking for something bad enough to do, because it would not be in their line of reasoning to do anything good.
Unfortunately soccer has been the chief sufferer. If these people get into Rugby League or Rugby Union grounds the officials and police would have to deal with them in the same way as football clubs are unsuccessfully trying to deal with them. I hope that the people responsible for entry to the great rugby games held in this country will keep a careful watch to ensure that the thugs are kept out of rugby altogether. It is bad enough to have the thugs in soccer. We are not prepared to have them in rugby.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: We all appreciate the hon. Gentleman's emotions and sentiments. I wish to suggest a practical way of stopping these thugs which has not been suggested yet. I agree with the Minister's remark that the people concerned are not local but are mobile and move to different

areas. I hope that the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) and perhaps the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) will agree that we should ensure that the thugs are sent to do community work on days when they would otherwise be watching football. Instead of being allowed to watch football they should be made to work with a shovel on match days.

Mr. Spriggs: I cannot help but agree with any system that will keep these thugs out of soccer grounds altogether. Any such scheme will suit me, provided it is successful, but it is not so easy in practice. The people who have the task of identifying the thugs or of meeting them on Saturday afternoon to see that they do their penance will not always be successful. There is nothing more difficult to deal with than the human race.
When the Government draft legislation against the thugs at soccer games, the higher the penalties the better. Any acts against the person committed by the thugs should be brought within the scope of the criminal law. We should pass the maximum possible sentences on the thugs so that they can be put away for long enough and given the treatment that they deserve for treating other people in such a manner.
I turn to the White Paper. I welcome it, but there is one very serious omission. I have here a letter from a constituent, Mr. Michael Bradbury, public relations officer of the 1895 International, of 107 Friar Street, St. Helens. Mr. Bradbury wrote to me in March of this years as follows:
I am writing to you because I know that in the past you have taken a stand against rugby apartheid. It is with regret that I have to report to you that it is once again raising its ugly head and would appear to be on the increase, so the good work you have done in the past is being totally ignored.
The one thing that hurts our organisation more than anything else is the fact that they are now discriminating against amateurs.
Let me give you some examples. Printed in the Oxfordshire Evening News recently was a quote from the Oxfordshire Rugby Union: 'that any player known to be playing that 13-a-side game may face a possible ban from playing Rugby Union for life.'
This was quite obviously aimed at our members at Oxford University, who have had the gall to form a Rugby League team within those hallowed confines of Oxford. Being unperturbed by this threat they continued to play, but worse was yet to come.


The amateur Rugby League players at Oxford University, in conjunction with BARLA, organised a match between 'Universities and Colleges Amateur Rugby League and the 'Southern Amateur Rugby League'. This was the first big match at Oxford and a lot of people put in an awful lot of work.
The match was to be played on a council-owned ground used by the Oxford Old Boys Rugby Union Club, who were most helpful in making their facilities available for the big event.
Everything seemed set for the match, when on the eleventh hour the Oxfordshire Rugby Union intervened and put the clubhouse, which was to be used for an after-match reception, out of bounds.
A new venue had to be quickly arranged, which of course caused a lot of disruption to an awful lot of people, especially those who were travelling down from the North to see the match.
This was the final straw. We have tried our best in the past to ignore the discriminating tactics of the Rugby Union, but now we feel we must make a stand. They must not be allowed to continue to practise apartheid.
It would appear that in theory, if the Rugby Union victimised against a person because of the colour of their skin or their religion, there are laws to protect the individuals, but because a person decides to play Rugby League, he forfeits the right to play Rugby Union.
Do the Rugby Union victimise against tennis players, cricketers, swimmers, golfers, even footballers? No, of course not. Then why Rugby League players?
In the past we and other people have complained to successive sports Ministers on the grounds that the Rugby Union receive a grant from the Sports Council and yet their doors are not open to all. Are we to take it that our Government condones victimisation and apartheid?
Enclosed you will find further examples of Rugby Union apartheid. What we would like you to do is table a question in the House of Commons and bring this matter to a head, and if possible, get some undertaking that something will be done about this dreadful state of affairs.
When I received that letter I took full responsibility for drafting an Early-Day Motion. By next week my right hon. and hon. Friends will find that there are more than 30 signatures appended to that motion. That means that more than 30 hon. Members agree that a system of rugby apartheid exists and that not enough has been done in the rules, either nationally or internationally, to ensure that this kind of behaviour is stopped.
My Early-Day Motion No. 271 headed "Rugby Apartheid" reads:
That this House takes a serious view of the Rugby Union attitude towards amateur players

who play the thirteen-a-side game, and in particular their decision to consider banning for life any player known to have played the thirteen-a-side game, Rugby League, as quoted in the Oxfordshire Evening News recently, from the Oxfordshire Rugby Union, and calls upon the Minister for Sport to inquire into the Rugby Union's discrimination against amateur Rugby League players, and withhold any further grants until the Rugby Union cease all forms of discrimination against amateur sportsmen.

Mr. Hector Monro: I shall certainly say something about the hon. Gentleman's remarks, if I catch the eye of the Chair later. However, I do wish that the hon. Member would not use the word "apartheid" because he knows perfectly well the connotations which the word has in rugby football. Rugby football in Britain is absolutely free from anything to do with the colour problem. It is wrong of him to suggest, however inadvertently, that that is not so.

Mr. Spriggs: Let me reply in this way. Mr. J. D. Griffin wrote a letter to the Sunday Times saying:
My son is nearly 17 and his main sporting interest is rugby. On Saturdays he plays Rugby Union and on Sundays Rugby League for a local amateur team. Two years hence he will be subject to the Rugby Union rule which bars for life those over 18 who play Rugby League, even as amateurs, and will have to choose between the two sports, each of which he enjoys, rather than play as now.
If that is not apartheid I do not know what is. It is a form of discrimination against the Northern clubs who broke away from the old Rugby Union as long ago as 1895. They will never bury the hatchet. They have proved that.
Last year a colleague of mine in this House and I met the people from the Rugby Union to discuss the possibility of providing a gangway between Rugby Union and Rugby League. We spoke for two or three hours on the subject, only to find that ultimately the people from Twickenham decided that the answer must be "No". They insisted that if a youngster played Rugby League at any age above 18, and if that were reported to the Union, he would be considered for a life ban. The hon. Member for Dumfries asks me not to use the word "apartheid". The more we go into this the more assured I am that there is a case for this House to deal with state of apartheid in rugby.

Mr. Wiggin: Discrimination, not apartheid.

Mr. Spriggs: It is not just a case of discrimination. These people believe that they should contain Rugby Union on a class basis. It is both discriminatory and tantamount to apartheid.

Mr. Monro: How?

Mr. Spriggs: There are many famous players in Rugby Union and Rugby League who have had problems with the officials at Twickenham. Once they are over 18 it is apparently unforgiveable for them to play the 13-a-side game. They are then considered for a life ban.

Mr. Carter-Jones: I am largely in agreement with what my hon. Friend is saying. I am very much a Rugby Union man who has a great love of Rugby League. I appreciate the arguments that he is advancing about the class element, but may I assure him that in the area in which I was brought up, South Wales, this is a classless game? Equally, there are parts of Lancashire where Rugby Union is a classless game. There may be people who want to keep this class division which I deplore. However, I hope that my hon. Friend will not lay too much emphasis on its being a class game since in certain parts of the country Rugby Union is very much a working-class game.

Mr. Spriggs: I willingly accept what my hon. Friend says. I am aware that there are parts of the country where Rugby Union is played by working men. But it is not those teams who decide that youngsters cannot play Rugby Union once they have played the 13-a-side game when they are over the age of 18. This is decided by the people at Twickenham, and these are the people with whom we shall have to deal. When the Sports Council is making decisions about the apportionment of funds to various sporting and local authorities, it should take into account this form of discrimination—which I refer to as apartheid. I insist that it is a form of apartheid against those who want to play both games.
Where I live, in the Fylde area, we have the Fylde Rugby Union League. That is the only game I watch when I am at home. Those fellows there are not against any chap joining them who has played Rugby League. It is the people at Twickenham who decide otherwise.
The Labour Party Parliamentary Sports Group took a decision this week to ask the Rugby Union to meet it as soon as possible to discuss the situation. I said that reference should be made to an article dealing with "The state of the Union". It is a long article so I will take it out of context. If anyone wishes to challenge part of it I hope that they will not hesitate to interrupt. It says:
Today in Parliament the hon. Member for St. Helens is to ask the Minister for Sport what he thinks about 'sportsmen being ostracised' by a body that received Government aid. It is not the first time, mind you, that Mr. Howell has been asked to defend the indefensible. A couple of years ago…another northern Member asked him why the Sports Council 'were continuing to give money to the Rugby Union, a body that is not open to all the public'. He quoted the Council's grant aid application form which stated unequivocally that 'no application for membership will be refused'".
I urge my hon. Friend to look at that. If the application form states that no application for membership will be refused, the Rugby Union is the villain against true sport.
I urge the Minister to take the responsibility of putting that right on behalf of the many thousands of Rugby League players and those who watch the game. I ask him particularly to act on behalf of those who play the amateur game.

Mr. Macfarlane: Does not the hon. Member consider that grant aid application should be evaluated solely by the Sports Council and that the Minister should not intervene?

Mr. Spriggs: The Government should make the grant to the Sports Council and allow it to decide where the money should go. That is the fairest way of dealing with the matter. However, political interference has been injected. I want Rugby Union and Rugby League to be unfettered. I do not want a body of people to be able to decide, upon evidence given to them, that a youngster over the age of 18 has played Rugby League and may be banned for life from playing Rugby Union. I am not against grants. But there is unfair discrimination between one set of sportsmen and another. I have evidence to prove that. Many of these sportsmen would like to be able to play either game whenever they are invited.

Mr. Wiggin: The hon. Member is now discriminating.

Mr. Spriggs: I am not discriminating. I am asking the House to negotiate a free gangway between Rugby Union and Rugby League for all amateur sportsmen. We could deal with the professionals later. The system that operates at present is discrimination of the worst kind. It is wrong for the Government to part with taxpayers' money until they are satisfied that the two games are played in a manner which will allow the free transfer, or free gangway, between the two games.

7.44 p.m.

Mr. Jerry Wiggin: I confess that I am not a great expert on Rugby Union, but I know absolutely nothing about Rugby League. I am happy to have those deficiencies repaired if anybody should invite me to watch the games.
The hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) spoils a good case by using a word which has a particularly unhappy connotation. One of the great things about rugby is that there is no class or colour discrimination. I hope that that situation will continue.
I intend to speak about a different subject—the ancient sport of horse racing. I declare an interest. I advise the Bloodstock and Racehorse Industries Confederation which is a recently formed body. Mr. John Winter, the president, has recently talked to the Minister about the political problems associated with the racing industry. I am sad that it is necessary to use the word "industry" about a sport. Racing is a sport. It began as a sport. In these days of large investments, massive betting and international trade in bloodstock, it is easy to forget that racing is a sport.
There are so many different Ministers involved that it is right in this debate to ask the Minister to use his power as coordinator to draw some of the difficulties of the sport to the attention of his colleagues.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) mentioned the Racing Industry Liaison Council, which was created by the Jockey Club. The council seeks to represent all voices in the racing industry, but it is an advisory body staffed by an employee of Messrs. Wetherby and Sons and chaired by the Senior Steward of

the Jockey Club. Its procedures are cumbersome in the extreme.
I admire the way in which the Jockey Club has established British racing as a model for the rest of the world, over several centuries, and it is a model for honesty and probity. Although it is sometimes late in the day, the British racing industry is ahead of most other countries in its up-to-date scientific techniques.
I recently paid a visit to Newmarket, with colleagues. The cynics will smile at the thought of a parliamentary delegation to the 1,000 Guineas, but I can assure hon. Members that we worked hard and we saw many aspects of the industry. We saw the steps taken to ensure that horses do not run with the help of artificial stimulants. Large amounts of money are spent on equipment. Weapons are being devised to be used against those who would subvert the industry for financial ends.
The Levy Board is the statutory body that levies money from the bookmaking profession to be used as prize money. The breeders, owners, jockeys and trainers should get together under the umbrella of an organisation such as BRIC to deal with the political problems that unhappily assail this sport. That would be more satisfactory than the Jockey Club attempting to extend its influence into those areas. Members of the Jockey Club do not have the knowledge and expertise. They have been shown not to have that type of interest.
Although there are those who think that this is merely a struggle for power, I am afraid that the Minister may, by default, get the opportunity at some future date to impose upon the industry a more widespread, bureaucratic, Government-type set-up, which most people do not want. They do not want it because, inevitably, it will have the effect of reducing the power of the Jockey Club, the merits of which are recognised world-wide.
I turn to the difficult subject of taxation in the hope that the Minister will make representations to the Treasury about the problems which that Department can cause. I refer especially to the effect of value added tax on foreign owners and investors in the bloodstock industry. Our colleagues in Europe are


urging us to harmonise our taxation arrangements. There are 16 pages in the relevant schedule to the current Finance Bill with this objective in mind, and I shall be moving amendments during the Committee stage of that Bill in the hope of helping the bloodstock industry.
Of the three great racing countries—Ireland, Britain and France—the Irish have a zero rate of VAT on bloodstock. We have our full rate of 8 per cent. The French have a high rate, but they value the stock at a set level. It is a low level, originally calculated on the value of the horse for its carcase. That is the method that we should adopt. It need not be done by legislation; it can be done by the simple act of the Customs and Excise ordaining the value for VAT purposes. The Minister will say that that is cheating and that it is against the rules. The truth is that many millions of pounds are lost to this country because foreign owners go either to Ireland or to France where, incidentally, the prizes are much richer and rewards are far greater. Those in this industry are in a highly competitive international business, where the wealth of Americans and Japanese and Middle East money can and should be channelled into this country for employment, for investment and for racing.
It is harmonisation that I seek. Of course, there are other aspects of taxation. We have the problems of capital transfer tax and the enormous value of modern stallions. Last Thursday, we had the privilege of seeing four of the greatest race horses in the world standing at the National Stud. The stud is financed by Levy Board money. It was very encouraging to learn that some of our greatest horses will continue, at least for the present, to contribute to our bloodstock lines, which have been built up over many hundreds of years. The fear is that in the future similar horses will go abroad and we shall not be able to maintain the level of purity of our bloodstock lines that established this country as one of the great racing countries of the world.
I can talk about employment. I can talk about investment. The Minister knows full well the importance of maintaining this industry. Certainly his colleagues at the Treasury will know, because of the sum, in excess of£100 million, which goes into their coffers

annually as a result of betting duty. The industry contributes to the national purse, and it is time that the Treasury recognised that some part of that money has to go back into the industry. Seed corn has to be planted.
Although it is the duty of the Home Secretary to fix the levy—and statutorily he is required to consider only the views of the Bookmakers' Committee of the Levy Board—it is right that we should raise our voices and encourage the right hon. Gentleman, when the moment comes to recognise the need for a higher return. Half of 1 per cent. would be adequate. It would transform the prize money statistics and help enormously.
I know that the Royal Commission on Gambling—a Royal Commission is the usual device to delay decision—is currently considering all these difficult problems and that it probably will report within the next 12 months. But then, given a gap for parliamentary consideration and other matters, it may be several years before action can be taken on its report. The levy can be altered, however, and I think that the time for alteration will be upon us very soon. It can be altered to take effect a year hence and have an immediate beneficial effect on the industry.
I appreciate that, with the Home Office dealing with gambling matters, the Treasury dealing with duty and the right hon. Gentleman dealing with those aspects of horse racing which come under the category of sport, it is not always easy to know who should be approached. I suggest that there should be a sponsoring Ministry for horse racing. Many industries have sponsoring Ministeries and thereby a permanent connection with civil servants. This would be very helpful.
I turn to a completely different subject which is mentioned in the White Paper. I want to talk for a short time about boats and boating. I declare an interest, in that I advise the Boat Builders' Federation. Here, the Minister could help, especially over inland waterways. In his various capacities, this is a subject which falls entirely on his plate. He will know that, under the environmental precautions which all water authorities are considering, there will be fairly severe building regulations for boats used on inland waterways concerned with the disposal of waste, the location and size of


fuel tanks and other matters which may affect the external environment around a boat.
We seem to have a situation now in which there will be different sets of rules, depending on the areas in which boats operate. This is so clearly a stupidity that if the Minister took an interest in this matter he would take as his model the old Thames Conservancy rules. They could be brought up to date, and they would be a well understood model. Not only would the Minister do a great service to boat builders; he would help boat hirers, boat users and water authorities. Above all, he would cut down on bureaucracy and save many hours in Committee time setting up 20 different sets of rules where one would do.
The boat builders, too, are concerned about high-rate VAT. It has come down from the punitive level of 25 per cent. But it is still possible to carve up a boat trailer into three different rates of VAT—zero rate, low rate and high rate. The complexity is such that the bureaucracy cannot conceivably pay for the additional revenue which alone should justify taxation. Although again I say this to put it on the record, I hope that the Minister will realise the difficulties.
Finally, on boating, there is a matter that will be coming before him on the Home Office Working Party on Water Safety. This applies not only to all coastal regions but obviously it affects many different services. I hope that the Minister will appreciate that the mass of people who go boating do so to get away from regulations, committees and rules, and that any suggestion that boats should be registered or given numbers will be much distrusted by the hundreds and thousands of people who regularly go boating in anything from small dinghies to large ocean-racing cruisers.
When this matter comes before the Minister, I hope that he will remember that the essential virtue of boating is freedom. There are many people who think that these matters should not even be raised in this place. But, inevitably, with the complexity of modern government, it becomes more and more necessary for the machine to intervene in what started life as sheer enjoyment. Everybody appreciates the amount of Government money that has been made available to

help youngsters to go sailing and to learn sailing. A whole new area of sport has been opened up. It is a sport at which, happily, we in Britain are very good. Gold medals were won for sailing in the Olympics, as the House will recall. It is an excellent way of getting people out of cities and into the fresh air for exercise and pleasure in a thoroughly wholesome environment.
I conclude with a plea. It is not my habit to contribute regularly to debates on sport. They do not take place often, so perhaps that is one of the reasons. In my travels around the world, particularly in my recent visit to South Africa, I have found that those who wish to change their own countries—and there are many such people—feel totally isolated and cut off. If we cannot, through sport, extend a bridge to our friends in those countries—and there are many—who may be of other political persuasions, of which we do not approve, such as behind the Iron Curtain, how can we make physical and personal contact and establish an understanding with those people? They are not all bad. They may have leaders of whom we grossly disapprove and policies which we truly abhor, but I can recall that the breakthrough in American-Chinese relations came with "ping-pong diplomacy" as it was called. We all welcomed Chinese ping-pong players in Birmingham the other day.
We must try to take politics out of sport, because if people come to play a game together they may be able to establish personal relationships and ultimately, through those relationships, change that which is bad.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones: I hope that the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) will forgive me if I do not follow his remarks for a moment. My description in an edition of "Who's Who" lists me as an "all-round sportsman". Nowadays that refers to my figure and not to my playing, although. I maintain a lively interest in a wide variety of sports.
There are a number of items to which I wish to refer quickly. I realise that time is going on and that I must give others a chance to speak.
I wish to start by talking about bridge building—to which the hon. Member for


Weston-super-Mare and also my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) referred. I speak as a Rugby Union referee. I have this in common with my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell), who was also a referee. I understand that the hon. Gentleman who will reply to the debate for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro), shares my love of Rugby Union.
In Wales Rugby Union is a way of life. I also have a great love for Rugby League and I am saddened by what is now happening. I can give some illustrations. One of the most outstanding wings of all time, who played for Salford before the war, was Alan Edwards. We were brought up in the same village and played rugby together. In 1937 he went to Salford, and we were then segregated and were not allowed to play together again. It happened that I met him again in the RAF. I was an air crew cadet and he was a physical training instructor. Hey presto!We could play rugby together. However, at the end of the war there was segregation again. This is sad and it ought to be tackled seriously.
I know that the hon. Member for Dumfries will argue with me that this is a matter for the international associations but I beg all the individual associations in this country to make a plea to the international board to get the matter put right.
I can give another good example. My wife and I are reasonably active members of Wrexham Sports Club. It is a multi-sports club where rugby, cricket, men's and women's hockey and squash are played. One of our active members was an eminent goalkeeper for Manchester United. David Gaskell. David can now come to Wrexham and play Rugby Union football—and he does so. He can also play cricket in our club, and he is not only a good player but a good social member. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, who is now leaving the Chamber, mentioned bridge building, and I urge him to bring pressure to bear on his side of the House on this matter. If we want to bridge build and we object to apartheid—and that is a strong word, so let us talk about separatism—then let us try to bring people together.
When a man stops playing Rugby League in a professional capacity and moves from the area in which I and the hon. Member for St. Helens live, there can be no further contact. He is not allowed back in. Great service was done for rugby by David Watkins, the great outside half for Wales, who played both Rugby Union and Rugby League. Why can he not, if he wishes, go back and make a contribution to rugby elsewhere? There are no problems at grass roots level. I checked the feeling that exists between Rugby Union in Eccles and Swinton Rugby League Club in my constituency. They have a cordial relationship and no problems.
The problems seem to exist in the minds of the high and mighty administrators. I regret that, but it is true. I urge all people of good will to come together on this matter. The most damning indictment of all is that the amateur lad who wants to play Rugby League is forbidden to do so. That is tragic and it reflects great discredit on Rugby Union. They are both good games and both have a place in society. Nobody should be ostracised.
Another matter that I wish to raise is football hooliganism. My constituency is next to the Manchester United ground. Many hon. Members are worried because a minority group is being allowed to dominate the pleasure and enjoyment of the majority. Banning supporters from travelling to away games is an extreme step. I know that that step was taken reluctantly by the Government but I ask for the problem to be looked at again because it is one that could spread elsewhere.
An article in The Sun today said that at one time Mods and Rockers went to Brighton for a beat-up but that they now identified with a club. I should like to see firm action. The junior and senior attendance centres should be developed, voluntary services should be used to their maximum capacity and, if necessary, after persistent offences, suspended sentences should be given which should be implemented after any further misdemeanours.
During the last debate on sport and recreation my right hon. Friend the Member for Small Heath said:
As for Manchester United's away matches, it is clear that the principal offenders seem


to have very little connection at all with Manchester….
I pay tribute to the supporters, and particularly to their secretary Mr. David Smith, who has always co-operated fully with us and who has resented and regretted as bitterly as any one of us in the House the difficulties any supporters have landed the club into."—[Official Report, 6th April 1977; Vol. 929, c. 1320–1.]
The Minister made it clear that we must watch carefully to ensure that we do not punish the mass for the misconduct of the minority.
I should like to refer to the rôle of clubs in the local community. In our last debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) said:
Hon. Members who have visited Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, and some Iron Curtain countries will testify that many of the great football clubs in those places do more than promote football. They encompass within their cities sporting organisations of a kind which engender a great deal of loyalty to that particular club. This should be looked at in this country."—[Official Report, 6th April 1977; Vol. 929, c. 1338.]
We should maximise the use of club facilities and I should like to see more multi-purpose and multi-sports clubs. I referred earlier to the club at Wrexham. We have seen there a growth of rugby union and sport generally and we are all delighted that the local Soccer team is doing so well. I should like to see the fullest possible use made of sports club facilities, with the younger playing members setting standards of good behaviour on and off the field. Much good can come from that.
I should also like to see older players putting back into sport some of the pleasure that they have had from it. I got great pleasure from refereeing rugby matches before I came to the House and it is pleasant now on Sunday mornings and Saturday afternoons to see older players helping youth and colt teams and 50 or 60 young lads being coached in mini-rugby by retired players.

Mr. Macfarlane: The Sports Council in many regions is encouraging some of the star attractions from football clubs to go into deprived areas and they are doing an extremely useful job on the lines suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Carter-Jones: I agree completely and I should like to see more of that sort of thing. It is good to see massive

young players who are full of energy kept under control by the discipline of older players.
I am concerned about the lack of facilities for anglers in various water board areas. I have had several complaints about privilege in fishing in the North-West, particularly in regard to the Stocks reservoir, that is used almost exclusively by the North-West Water Authority. This is wrong because angling is a sport that embraces all people.
The second complaint is that there is a grave shortage of 24-hour licences throughout the country for those who want the experience of fishing in different types of water. I hope that my right hon. Friend will look at this problem because working-class people suffer most if such licences are not granted.
Horticultural societies and allotments do not receive much attention in the White Paper. I must declare a non-interest because my wife is the gardener in our family and I do not like being dragged into the garden. However, when she succeeds in getting me there to cut the lawn or to turn the odd sod, I feel better for it at the end of the day.
I should like to pay tribute to the Winton horticultural society in my constituency that celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. It holds three shows a year, and I have opened one of them in each of the last 14 years. It is tremendously rewarding to see the excellent work of its members in this economically-sound activity. I should like to see more encouragement given to horticultural societies and to people who run allotments. There is considerable demand for allotments nowadays.
The House would not expect me to sit down without referring to the disabled. I was pleased to see a reference to the disabled in the White Paper. I sat on the Snowdon Committee, though not on the sport and leisure side, and there is an admirable chapter in its report about sport and the disabled.
If we can encourage severely handicapped people to take part in sport, it demonstrates to the rest what can be achieved. There is a young man in my constituency called Mike Kenny who has won three gold medals for swimming in the paraplegics Alympic games. I told him to take great pride in what he had


done, but his greatest achievement was to set an example to other severely disabled people.
I should like to pay tribute to Sir Ludwig Guttman, who did his best to persuade severely handicapped people that they had a part to play in sport. His wonderful work at Stoke Mandeville has helped to release disabled people from their inward thoughts of oppression. He appeared in a film sponsored by Action Research for the Crippled Child and demonstrated what could be done. The clash of the wheelchairs in the basketball match made me shudder and I thought that perhaps the hon. Member for Dumfries had come round the blind side of a scrum and tackled me when I was not in control of the ball.
I have been asked by my right hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for the disabled to say how highly he regards the tremendous help that he has received in this field from my right hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for sport and he has asked me to pay tribute to him.
In paragraph 27 of the Snowdon Working Party's report the director of PHAB—Physically Handicapped Able Bodied—Mr. A. Seymour French is shown as saying:
We haven't got it made when we open the door of the club. This is when the training begins, the learning begins, the overthrow of prejudice, fear and insecurity. This is why when I visit one of the 180 PHAB clubs I am very saddened to see a group of able-bodied people at one end of the room and a group of physically handicapped people at the other.
That goes back to what I was saying earlier about integration.
There are two recommendations in the working party report that I should like to refer to specifically. The first says:
The governing bodies of sport and recreation should find out from disabled people what their requirements are in terms of special equipment, coaching and adaptation to rules.
The second says:
The requirements of the disabled should be considered when sport and leisure facilities are being planned and designed.
The constant plea to anyone who is providing new facilities must be to take into account the requirements of the disabled and the elderly.
Speaking as a Welshman who represents an English constituency, may I ask

that we should please stop this silly and sorry business of banning the Welsh national anthem at internationals between Wales and England? It has been the tradition to play the Welsh anthem, and I should not like to see this joyous occasion upset in any way by such a decision. This comes within the responsibilities of my right hon. Friend and I hope that he will consider it.
The final paragraph of the White Paper says:
Where the community neglects its responsibilities for providing the individual with opportunities and choice in the provision of sports and recreational facilities, it will rarely escape the long-term consequences of this neglect. When life becomes meaningful for the individual then the whole community is enriched.
My final plea is that we should have no more of this privilege. Let Rugby League and Rugby Union co-exist. Let the majority nor suffer because of the minority and let people with severe handicaps or impairments enjoy the full fruits of sport at all times.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Although I do not know what time the Front Benches are proposing to speak, it has been mentioned that the House may sit after 10 p.m. I very much doubt that, but in any event may I point out that there are three hon. Members wishing to speak on this side of the House and two from the Labour Benches. It is now 8.20 p.m. and if we each stick to a self-imposed time limit of, say, 10 minutes, it will be 9.10 p.m. when the winding-up speeches begin. I suggest that that would be an admirable time to sum up the matter and conclude the debate. Up to now there have been very long speeches. I make no complaint, but this is an adjourned debate and a number of us asked the Government to continue it because we wanted to make contributions. We shall wish to keep those contributions brief. I hope that my suggestion will commend itself to my colleagues and to the House.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): The Chair takes note of what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. However, it is entirely a matter that is in the House's own hands. The debate may continue until 12.05 a.m.
but no doubt the House will take note of the comments that have been made.

Mr. Rees-Davies: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I regret that I caused the point to be made about the House being able to sit until after midnight.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am afraid that I cannot erase the remarks made in reply to the hon. and learned Gentleman.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith: I shall do my best to comply with the wish to get through the business as quickly as possible.
I join in the plea of the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) about angling. As an angler myself, I hope that the Government will look into the problem of 24-hour licences. I shall not follow the hon. Member into the realms of the merits of Rugby League and Rugby Union. I have played Rugby Union and I have watched the Rugby League Cup Final at Wembley, and have enjoyed it just as much as Rugby Union.
I associate myself with the plea by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) that there should be a sponsoring Ministry for the bloodstock industry. The industry could go to this Ministry to discuss technical matters, because I am sure that the Treasury is not really interested in the quality of racing and the seed corn of the industry. It takes the attitude that people back bad horses just as heavily as good horses. Throughout the racing world there have been some horrible horses which have attracted the same amount of betting. There should be people who are concerned with the quality of racing, and I do not think that we shall find them in the Treasury.
I want to talk about money and sport. There is a danger of falling between two stools here. Many people have called upon the Government to devote more money to sport, and disappointment has been expressed at the grant made to the Sports Council, because it has barely kept pace with inflation and is inadequate for the council to discharge its many duties The Minister knows where the disappointment has been expressed. One can understand the disappointment of those people who give so much of their time

voluntarily. A tremendous amount of voluntary effort goes into administration and into sport generally by people throughout the country. The figure has been quoted of 250,000 sporting and recreational clubs in this country, in which 5 million people take part. The number of voluntary workers giving more than five hours a week in assisting club activities is 500,000.
Those who are keen on sport, administer it and coach in it fully appreciate the need for voluntary efforts for the clubs to do all that is possible to help themselves without holding out begging bowls to the Government. One must also sympathise with the Sports Council when it claims that
at present British competitors in many Olympic sports are at a considerable disadvantage due to lack of funds and facilities".
I quote from a document entitled "Amateurism and Olympic Sport" that has been sent to many hon. Members:
The Sports Councils are of the opinion that substantial additional resources are required to provide our British competitors with a better chance of competing with success in international events leading up to the Olympic Games.
There is always the point of view heard in this country that we should not concern ourselves with the Olympic Games and winning medals in any particular sport. It is claimed that this is the whim of those who see sport as a method of national glorification. I do not look at sport from that angle at all; I look at it from the simple point of view that people like to watch and participate in sporting events, and they also like to win. They like their teams to win and they like to see British competitors win in international competitions. When they see this it is invariably good for sport as a whole, because it excites interest, sustains enthusiasm and raises the quality of sport for all those who, like myself, never imagined that they would represent their country in any sporting event.
It is no good suggesting that we can compete at the highest possible level unless we recognise that more money is necessary to provide the coaching and technical facilities that are so badly needed. I do not see that this conflicts with the glorious traditions of the amateur, in which this country takes considerable pride. There will always be


those who want to take part in the game for its own sake and who are not concerned with winning.
We should start with the individual. I have a great deal of sympathy with the article in the Sun, in which a quotation was attributed to Tony Greig about the Australian cricket captain hoping to make a lot of money from various sponsorships during the Australian tour, just as Tony Greig made a lot of money on the recent visit to Australia. These people give a great deal of enjoyment in the exhibition of their talents, displayed in a short period of time, and their contribution is worthy of high payment if this is what the market can stand.
I do not believe that the money paid to our sportsmen has degraded either the sport or their contribution to that sport. By "degrading" I mean undermining the spirit of sportsmanship. On the contrary, I believe that by enabling them to give their talents to the sport it has helped to upgrade the whole quality of the sport itself.
There will always be those who feel that somehow it is not decent to make money out of sport. But if that is the choice that we are asked to make, there will be those who will argue that it is wrong for a person to make money out of sport for commercial reasons—to be paid by private sponsors—and that if the money is to be forthcoming it will come from the State.
I make no criticism of the fact that the Government have not been able to give the additional sums to the Sports Council that perhaps they would have liked to give. Sport must take its place in the queue, along with other forms of public expenditure. But I am bound to say that I would never urge the Government to get too involved in sport, either administratively or financially. I do not believe that the Government are very much geared to that. Administratively, if sport is centred on Government it becomes bureaucratic and wasteful, and if the Government are financially involved, it will make sport more of a political football than it need be.
I do not look to East Germany as an example of how we can raise the standards of sport in this country. That is

one way of doing it, but I do not believe that it is our democratic way.
A more efficient and free way, and a more flexible way, is to encourage, first, the simplification of our tax system, so that it is a fair system in its treatment of sport, and secondly, to provide help and assistance whereby it is more profitable for private commercial concerns, as sponsors, to bring new sources of additional money into sporting activities.
Here I obviously declare an interest, as a consultant to Dunlop and to Grove-wood Securities, which runs motor circuit developments, including Brands Hatch.
I mention the question of taxation because I have little doubt that those who give so much of their time in a voluntary capacity and those who are involved in the administration of sport resent very much what they believe to be an unfair system. For instance, in the document "Taxation and Sport", which is the report of the conference organised by the Central Council of Physical Recreation, held in London on 27th January 1977, it was pointed out by a Mr. Sparkes, of the British Olympic Association, that being enabled to raise sufficient funds from donations and from commerce and industry would help with the training and the administration of the Olympic teams in this country. The association had to run promotions to make up the difference, but of the money raised by promotions, 52 per cent. was paid to the Government in corporation tax.
I think that most people who gave of their money and who ran these things voluntarily would have been appalled and horrified to recognise that under our tax laws the Government took about 52 per cent. of the money raised in that way.
Similarly, I think that there are those who feel that the fact that it is difficult—in fact, impossible—for successful athletes to average their earnings over a period of years for taxation purposes is also an unfair impost, when athletes have such a short period in which to capitalise on their talents. That is another example.
Then there are the workings of corporation tax—I shall not go into those—and not only concerning the British Olympic Association. The Jockey Club also has views on the matter.
In addition, there is the question of VAT. I shall not go into that matter. Once one starts on the VAT argument one finds that all kinds of other groups come into it.
I prefer to concentrate on the other aspects of the defects in our taxation system, including, of course, the extent to which the Government might consider the liberalisation of the lottery system in Britain.
Side by side with that there is the whole question of the higher levels of taxation. It is wrong that so many of our successful atheletes—I know that they are not the only people who suffer—even if they average their earnings over a three-year period, find out that our levels of taxation are so high that they are driven out of the country. It is not that I do not think that they should pay their fair whack. I think that they are paying more than that. It is not just that I feel sorry that a man should have to leave his homeland. It is that by leaving he is losing the opportunities that he has, in his spare time to give of his talents voluntarily through the various coaching schemes that we have to help give example and inspiration to the younger people coming along.
Lastly, I return to the other aspect of money—the injection of new sources of cash. I wrote a note to the Minister responsible for sport wondering whether he would be good enough to comment on the question of sponsorship on television. He will be aware that the Annan Report pointed out the complexities of the British licensing system, which have led to nonsenses concerning advertising. Reference has been made in the debate to the fact that people from China have exhibited their table tennis skills on television, and that when their backs were turned to the cameras we all saw a backing that showed the name of a well-known insurance company—the Norwich Union Insurance Company. That was done on the BBC.
The Annan Report mentions the BBC as referring
approvingly to the removal of a commercial name from a shoulder flash worn by Bjorn Borg at Wimbledon in 1975. That shoulder flash was not removed for the 1976 Wimbledon finals—perhaps the prospect of disturbing the equanimity of mind of a Wimbledon finalist was too daunting.

We can all quote examples. There is no problem in television based on sponsor-ship, but I would not want to change our system fundamentally. But the AnnanCommittee suggests that
When the fourth channel
—that is, according to its own recommendation
is established, therefore, many of those who at present sponsor sports events, knowing they are to be shown on BBC and ITV, may instead decide to divert their money to sports events which can be shown on the fourth channel where the sponsor's contribution could be given more prominence.
I ask the Minister, as the months roll by, to confer with his ministerial colleagues responsible for the preparation of the White Paper following the Annan Report, and also with advertisers, those who are skilled in marketing, in sports promotion and advertising provision, and those who have experience, in sporting organisations, of running sporting events which have been sponsored by well-known companies, and which, in addition, have been televised.
I would be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would consider bringing together people in all these different skills, to see whether we can hammer some sense out of the jungle of rules affecting the presentation and sponsoring of sporting events on both television channels. If the right hon. Gentleman tackled that job, shed the light of day on it, and established some ground rules, it could help to bring additional and much-valued sums from private sponsors into the British sporting world, with wonderful and desiable effects not only for those who wish to achieve the summit of athletic prowess but for those who expect, and for whom we would wish to provide, basic sporting facilities in our towns and big cities.

8.38 p.m.

Mr. Martin Flannery: The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin), who spoke about horse racing and taxation, mentioned that he regarded sport as a great bridge builder, and indeed it is. He referred the the Chinese ping-pong team. We certainly want to take part in sport with any who wish to play against us. He said that he had been to South Africa, but he neglected to mention that apartheid rules there, that the problem of


sport in that country is the problem of apartheid, including apartheid in its international teams. Apartheid and sport have nothing in common. Sport is for all mankind and not for men and women of one particular colour.
When I was browsing through the White Paper, which is now getting on for two years old, it struck me that, in order to have a flowering of sport, we need a great deal more public expenditure—and this impinges to some extent on what the hon. Member for East Grinstead (Mr. Johnson Smith) has said. Therefore, I think that hon. Members opposite and some of my hon. Friends have to think in such terms.
This White Paper is a long-term process. We debate it now and again. I have not taken part in a debate on it before, but, like my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, I am a former teacher and spent much of my spare time voluntarily encouraging children to swim and engage in athletics. Sport does build bridges, no matter whether one is brilliant or otherwise at football or cricket. It is not a great leveller, but it brings together children of different talents with a team spirit who want to do their best and to win.
For several matters that he mentioned my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary relied on his career as a teacher for inspiration. Teachers try to raise the maximum sum to advance the cause of sport.
I make no apology for once again having to raise the ugly subject of vandalism and hooliganism. I have been literally mandated by a large number of my constituents to speak on this subject tonight. It is a terrible and intractable problem. It is almost as difficult of solution as the problem of Northern Ireland.
I am the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough. A week last Saturday a state of virtual siege occurred around the Sheffield Wednesday ground. It was deplorable. Before the match began, a large delegation of licensees and shopkeepers came to my surgery and gave me Press cuttings which they had collected two or three years earlier about some of the appalling events then. They hardly bear mention. Those people were worried about the semi-final which was to be played at Hillsborough. Nearly all the pubs in the centre of Sheffield were

closed. The night before, when travelling on a bus, I was in the midst of a large number of young Manchester United supporters some of whom had badges on their chest saying "I hate Leeds United". I had to be quiet, for if I had caught their eye I might have been in trouble.
It does not ease the problem for hon. Members to say 'Yes, but such people come not from Manchester but from elsewhere". The problem remains. We cannot fob the blame off on to others by saying that it is not our own people who cause all the trouble in a city. There is, however, some evidence that some people come from outside. We shall grapple with the problem only if we talk about it realistically instead of arguing that our own people are all good and other people are not so good.
We have a splendid football ground in Sheffield. As a boy I used to go to the cinema on a Saturday afternoon. We boys used to dash out of the cinema and rush into the Sheffield Wednesday ground for the last 10 minutes. Many of us cannot forget those days, for that was what gave us a lasting love of sport. In those days we did not have enough money to pay the entrance fee.
The fact that we in Sheffield have such a lovely ground means that we have many extra and important matches every year. I have attended some of them. There did not seem to be a great deal of trouble three years ago. All the difficulties seem to have occurred in the past two or three years. Tuesday's editorial in the Star said:
Residents lose patience over soccer chaos. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the people of Hillsborough have finally got tough over the damage, inconvenience and violence created by soccer hooligans attending big matches at Sheffield Wednesday's stadium.
The editorial goes on to list some of the occurrences there. Seventy people were arrested at a recent match. Windows were kicked in. One Saturday morning hooligans offered money to local people for the loan of steps to enable them to get into the ground. People were urinating all over the place. Women became terrified and sent their children home. The pubs and the shops were closed, with a consequent loss of income. People asked me what they could do to secure compensation. Last Friday night a meeting took place at two days' notice. Four hundred people attended.
On the previous day I asked my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House during Business Questions whether we could have a debate precisely on soccer hooliganism and vandalism. I am embarrassed about raising it because so many hon. Members are doing so. There were two Questions on the subject this afternoon. But it has to be faced and we have to raise it, because many good human beings who love sport are staying away from the football grounds. They recognise that the police have a tough job to do. Indeed, a group of young men told me that the police had dragged them in when somebody else had caused the trouble, and these young men were seriously discussing whether they would go to the matches any more.
I am wary of people who apply simple solutions to this very big problem, who want bigger penalties, and who want to bring back the birch. I have received tens of letters asking for that. My reply to them is that if mankind could have been flogged into submission it would have been done many hundreds of years ago. People who would like to see what effect flogging would have ought to look at the television film "Roots". Flogging is not, I submit, any solution to the problem. It is a much deeper problem than that.
The problem springs from deep within the bowels of society. It is precisely because the delineation of the problem is so subtle and so terrible that we have to think very deeply in order to arrive at the kind of thorough going solution which has not been found so far.
Somebody once said that the high road to the solution of a problem is the posing of it. We are now only just about posing the problem confronting us. People are quite welcome to suggest bigger fines, flogging, and sending offenders here and there, but we should take very great care that we do not formulate hasty conclusions. We should realise that the debate on this problem is only just beginning.

Mr. Rees-Davies: In general what the hon. Gentleman is saying is perfectly correct, but he has not come up with the solution to the problem. Surely he recognises that we have to drum into the Minister and the Government the fact that many of these offenders are antisocial. How do we deal with them? We

deal with them by sending them to youth clubs. If they will not go voluntarily, we have to send them every single weekend for a long period of time to a place where they will have to engage in various pursuits and will be unable to go to football matches.

Mr. Flannery: The hon. and learned Gentleman says that I have not or the Minister has not come up with a solution, but then he says, "Here is the solution" My point is that I am wary of adopting ready-made solutions which come forward as quickly as that, because we have as many solutions as the number of people we talk to. These solutions are usually put forward in the very next sentence, and many of them are monosyllabic. But the problem is much deeper than that.
I have discussed only one problem and there are many more, but I should like in conclusion to make three suggestions, one of which is of a local character.
First, the chief constable in our area said that he would like an inquiry into what happened at the Hillsborough ground. I gave a short statement to the local radio, saying that I agreed that there should be a local inquiry. The chief constable pointed out that in the particular match a lot of the tickets which had gone to Leeds United supporters had somehow found their way across the Pennines to Manchester United supporters. The police had made a prior arrangement in the football ground to keep the two lots of spectators separate from each other, but the police suddenly found that, because these tickets had gone to Manchester, the Manchester United supporters were in the midst of the Leeds United people. There was no terrible hooliganism in the ground. It was largely caused by people outside who were unable to get in.
Certainly this is a problem which demands an inquiry. Therefore, without suggesting any solution at all, I am saying that an inquiry at local level is necessary when something serious occurs. For that reason I supported the chief constable's suggestion, because I believe that it is a good idea.
Secondly, I asked my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House last Thursday afternoon for a major debate in the House on this subject. I know that it has been discussed within the framework


of debates of this nature, but the problem is now of such serious concern nationally—and, indeed, almost internationally—that it warrants a serious major debate in the House. There should be a debate on this terrible problem of vandalism and hooliganism. It should be carefully prepared so that we may address ourselves to the problem not in its isolated context but in relation to the general problem. People throughout the country would then see that we are very serious about it. They would see that we have not any ready-made solutions but are willing to listen to one another's honest convictions in trying to reach a real solution to the problem.
Thirdly, I suggest that the time has come to set up a long-term commission of inquiry into the general subject of soccer vandalism and hooliganism. We should not be diverted to the general subject of vandalism, important as it is. Soccer vandalism and hooliganism, although inter-related in many ways with the general problem, warrant a commission of inquiry being set up so that everyone can see that we are treating the matter with due seriousness.
I end on a difficult note. The suggestions which I have made are, I think, important because this problem will increase, not decrease. Therefore, although that might seem pessimistic, that note of seeming pessimism is helpful in the sense of generating the proposals which I have put forward as a partial solution.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: I agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) about having a debate on vandalism, but that is a matter for the Home Secretary because it comes within the area of crime.
We are limited to the question of sports hooliganism. On that matter, of which I have made a study, two things need to be done as a matter of urgency. The first is to identify the persons who are engaged in the hooliganism. That requires all the people in Sheffield joining together and trying to identify the Sheffield hooligans. There should be a joint constabulary force, culled from forces throughout the country, to go round and identify the mobile hooligans. Those

hooligans should then be brought before the bench very quickly. The main objective is to keep them away from the danger place, which is the football stadium and the area for vandalism. Therefore, detention, particularly weekend detention, is required.
I have considered the question of the birch but have come to the conclusion that it is not the right solution. It would be the right solution if it could be administered quickly. Indeed, the cane could be used on the young ones by headmasters. The difficulty is that, when it is administered by the police, it is too late to have the immediate remedial and punitive effect which is required.
I did not intend to speak on that matter tonight, but I felt that I ought to make those remarks in reply to matters raised in a long speech by the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs). The hon. Gentleman expressed great anxiety about the matter in relation to Sheffield and other parts of the country.
I want to make a short but, I hope, contstructive contribution on the horse racing industry. I should say that I am a broken down athlete by background. I was a county cricketer. I played rugger and engaged in about five different fields of sport at Cambridge until the war put paid to that.
I take a close interest in racing in all its aspects. My remit for the right to speak on that matter stems from the fact that I have acted for about 100 bookmakers, including large ones, in cases affecting them. I have advised the Racecourse Association Ltd but not for money and the Greyhound Racing Association Ltd many times, but on a retainer in the past. So I do not have any axe to grind. I am not paid by anyone. However, I have put forward many ideas, including a new taxation idea, to Lord Leverhulme at the Jockey Club, which I shall mention.
Many of my friends are owners and trainers. I love the life and I live with it. As I am denied all other outlets of sport, I think I can claim the right to speak fairly for the whole of the racing industry right across the spectrum. When I was on the Horserace Totalisator Bill a fellow Member serving on the Committee was the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden). The hon. Gentleman suddenly took a retainer with


the bookmakers, which rather upset me at the time.
I shall try to give the real picture of what happens in the racing industry. One of the doyens and critics sits beside me—namely the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud).
First, a quick reference to breeders. Nobody in the country—including a large conference that took place this morning when many of those engaged in the racing industry met together—seems to be aware of the fact that we have more breeders of racehorses than owners. There are 6,316 breeders but only 6,000 owners. There are 386 trainers. Unless we can double the amount that is received by the racing industry, we shall not be able to maintain this country's premier control.
Between 1966 and 1975 exports from the United Kingdom rose by 124 per cent. Then began the downturn. In the December sales of 1974, 25 top-price horses were bought by foreign owners. In 1975 half of the sales were accounted for by export undertakings.
My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) said that we should abolish VAT. I think that the matter is much better put in another way. The purchase of a yearling attracts 8 per cent. VAT in England but nothing in Ireland or in France. The purchase of a foal attracts 8 per cent. VAT in England but nothing in Ireland or France. The same applies to the purchase of a broodmare, the purchase of a share in a syndicated stallion, the purchase of a stallion nomination, the import of all horses from overseas and the transfer of a homebred yearling from stud to training. Those who are engaged in these activities are having to pay on every transfer. Those who are engaged in bloodstock are having to pay on every purchase and change that takes place. Those in Ireland pay nothing and those in France pay only on the imports of horses from overseas, and only on carcase value.
The people involved in bloodstock are being ruined. I am saying this as someone who has seen their involvement. I know many of the people concerned. Their businesses are closing. They are people who run farms. Most of them do very good farming in addition to looking after one or two horses. They

are the salt of the earth. They should not be put in a position in the EEC in which they are being grossly discriminated against both by Eire and France. The matter should be put to the Treasury in that way.
I was concerned with the introduction of the betting office to this country. The introduction came about as the result partly from my ideas and debates in which I participated. Those who have been in this place long enough will know that that is the position. They will know that I brought about their introduction, to a large extent. I said that they would get about£30 million at that time. The Government accepted that. In fact, the betting shops received over four times that figure. Clearly they have not given back to the industry a fair proportion of the take. I am not suggesting that the Treasury should not collect it. The Treasury takes the tax, which comes to over£110 million. The turnover is£1,400 million and now over£110 million goes in duty. Racing receives under£10 million. How is it to continue successfully with so small a take?
The fact is that if 1½per cent. of the 7½per cent. off-course tax that is taken were returned by the Treasury to the Levy Board, the necessary yield of about£20 million for the benefit of racing would be provided. It is not only a matter of increasing prize money; it is a matter of ensuring that the people in bloodstock are not unfairly discriminated against. Those involved in bloodstock are grossly underpaid. For example, a stable lad earns only about£25 a week. He does not get a wage such as that of anyone else in industry.
We all know that many people attend race meetings and certainly many millions view them and make bets off-course. All that activity involves returning sums of money, but it represents an appalling situation for owners. I had a talk this morning with an owner who is a member of the Jockey Club. I spoke to a very well-known trainer and asked him what he was charging owners to train racehorses. He said "I have put up the figure today to£50 each horse per week". His calculation meant that it would cost£3,000 a year to run a racehorse, including other racing costs, entry fees and so on. A total of 10,000 horses are needed


to sustain the industry, and it is an industry which gives immense pleasure to millions of people.

Mr. Freud: I am following the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument closely. Does he not agree that if all the extra money that goes to racing were given in additional prize money, it would be a way to give benefit to owners, breeders, stable lads and trainers in terms of extra bounty?

Mr. Rees-Davies: I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but I do not think that the accent should be placed on prize money. Of course it should be increased, but I want to ensure that the money is obtained in one way or another and also that it goes to the right people. I want it to go to those who are engaged in running the industry—the trainers, stable lads, jockeys, those concerned with breeding and so on. This can be done by making the Treasury recognise that, although it has hit the jackpot, there is still money to be gained. But the Treasury must realise that part of the proceeds of off-course betting should go back where it came from—racing.
I moved a number of amendments to earlier legislation seeking to reduce the on-course differential. I suggested that the figure should go down to 2 per cent. Unfortunately, George Wigg at that time opposed my suggestion, and the figure was set at 4 per cent. rather than at 2 per cent. I believe that if the figure were put at 2 per cent. it would enable more people to attend meetings and others to take advantage of off-course facilities. Furthermore, it would enable the Tote to obtain revenue at the expense of the bookmaker. Unfortunately, if it continues on present lines, the Tote is bound to fail. It takes too much from the punter. It cannot operate against the bookmaker because 25 per cent. of the money is taken by the Tote on place money and 29 per cent. is gambled in jackpots and trebles. If that much money is taken from the punter, the Tote cannot make a fair return. Having regard to Tote prices, no punter in his right mind will bet on the Tote today in substantial terms.
If the administration is to be successful, it should be afforded 2 per cent. on-

course and should be given what is in effect a hidden subsidy. I know that I shall be unpopular with my bookmaker friends, but I believe that all those concerned with racing should get together and recognise that there should be a quid pro quo and mutual understanding.
I believe that it is necessary to have a new Horserace Betting Levy Board. Although I support the make-up of the present Jockey Club, it is true to say that almost a revolution has taken place. The Jockey Club is well-conducted, but I believe that a new board is essential, combining Racecourse Association, Jockey Club and Levy Board.
The race courses could be helped in a number of ways which I shall not go into tonight. No doubt I shall raise them in debates on the Finance Bill. A simple reduction of the on-course betting take handed over to the industry for the increased levy will do the trick.
There are 78,000 people in the betting industry and 22,000 people in the racing stables, making 100,000 people who are concerned in racing as a whole. Something has to be done to get an additional£20 million. There is the suggestion put by Charles St. George in the Gimcrack speech two years ago, which I took up with the Jockey Club, that there should be closed circuit television in betting shops at a charge of£1 per race. This would provide revenue in excess of£20 million.
The cost of introduction would be great, and there are parts of the country where it might not be possible to introduce it, because it is a relay system, but this could be done. It is practical. It has been considered by the Jockey Club, but it would involve legislation. The House would have to be willing to accept television in betting shops, and I do not know whether it would do so, but that is the way to make the industry totally viable, with new revenue which is self-produced. There are more than 12,000 betting shops and at£1 per race per day that would produce more than£20 million.
We ought to recognise that racing is one of the great recreations of the British public and one that we should do our best to try to help. Surely that help can be given if all hon. Members are willing to take a continuing interest in the industry.

9.8 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: Having shared the doubtful pleasure of sitting through the whole of the last debate on sport and recreation, as did my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs), I am glad that this debate is taking place. I confess that I am rather disappointed that some hon. Members seem to have used the debate to repeat speeches that they made before and that did not seem to advance the course of the debate very much.
I wish to mention one area that has not been discussed much, although it was referred to by my hon. Friend the Minister at the beginning of the debate. I refer to recreation in the countryside, by which I mean recreation that is largely individual and not organised. At one time we would not have thought that that type of recreation would have a major impact on the countryside, but it has a large impact today. It is of great importance that this form of recreation should be stressed, because the numbers involved are probably greater than those involved in organised sport.
I speak from the experience of being on the Executive Committee of the National Trust, which is involved in the subject because of the facilities that it provides. I have also been a member of bodies such as the Youth Hostels Association, in which I used to be involved much more actively and which I helped to establish. Other hon. Members have been declaring their past activities, so I may as well join the happy throng.
It is of some interest that the Youth Hostels Association, which started almost entirely on the basis of providing acommodation for people who wanted to spend a night out in the country, which many could not otherwise have afforded, has greatly developed its educational side. Of the bodies concerned with recreation in the countryside, it is usually difficult to distinguish between those that are mainly concerned with recreation and those that are concerned with education. The words means much the same thing, anyway, if we examine them. We should not keep these things in separate compartments. We cannot look at the impact of recreational activities on the countryside in isolation. We have to reconcile the

recreational demand with a host of other uses. One of the most important things that we must do is to examine how much can be done by means of multiple use of areas. This is something that we argued about years ago, in the days of the 1970 conferences.
First, it is clear that we need an overall strategy for the use of our countryside. This was urged on the Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee dealing with the national parks and the countryside, on which I served. It is 30 years since the Scott and the Uthwatt Reports were published. There have been enormous changes in our way of life since then. Yet we still have not had a proper look at strategy. I know that at last, after a lot of chivvying by several of us who have presented reports and ideas, the Department has set up its internal and terribly secret Countryside Review Committee.
Why on earth it was regarded as being impossible to discuss this before the reports were published I cannot understand. The first report has been published and I welcome it. We understand that a number of others are to follow shortly. The Countryside Commission and the Nature Conservancy Council have published some valuable statements and comments dealing with the impact of modern agricultural methods upon other uses of the countryside. Above all, there is the reconciliation of agricultural use, which is naturally the main concern, with conservancy as a whole. There is also the question of the treatment of wildlife.
All of these reports make clear how dangerous it is to permit the continued erosion of our heritage of landscape. It is rapidly being eroded. It is all very well to say that nothing is static. No one wants to keep everything as it once was. On the other hand, we have to examine the wider impact of new techniques in agriculture. That sparks off criticisms and anxieties in areas such as Exmoor, where I am glad to see my right hon. Friend has established a personal inquiry. The conditions there are not peculiar to that area; there are similar cases. It seems amazing that the Ministry of Agriculture may be handing out subsidies to encourage the farming of marginal land while the Countryside Commission may be seeking to preserve some


of that land in its wild state for recreational and other amenity uses.
This brings me to the point referred to in the first report of the Countryside Review Committee. It makes a suggestion that is not particularly novel; I made it some years ago. It is that we ought to be monitoring what has been done under Section 11 of the Countryside Act to find out what action other Departments and statutory bodies are taking to protect the countryside. It is all very well to have the general provision that we wrote into the Act, but what use is being made of it? The first obvious answer is that if we are to have the multi-purpose use of our countryside we must ensure that there is effective management of it.
I am delighted that the Countryside Commission, among others, has been sponsoring some interesting experiments. I find it encouraging to examine the commission's last report, which sets out a list of the initiatives that it has taken in examining possible ways in which multiuse of the countryside can be extended. That should be supported and encouraged.
Why is greater use not made of the public acquisition of land? I cannot understand why the Secretary State does not give more support to the recommendation in the Sandford Committee Report that would give the national parks wider power compulsorily to acquire land in the last resort. That power should not be used ab initio but, if there is no agreement, the national parks should have the right of compulsory acquisition.
We should also take action to streamline the administrative machine. A mass of statutory bodies is concerned with this problem. That is ridiculous. I am not satisfied with the Department's reply to the Select Committee's Report. For example, water involves 10 regions. The National Water Council gathers them together. There is also the Water Space Amenity Commission and the Inland Waterways Amenity Advisory Council. That seems to be an absurd situation.
I am glad that the Department has said that in a few year's time it will look again at the administrative position of the national parks. I wish that that could

be brought forward, because some major practical difficulties should be put right. Some counties—not the majority—appear to be denying powers to the national parks. Yorkshire is an example. In other areas it is possible for national parks committes to work under their own initiatives.
Several hon. Members have referred to the importance of voluntary action. Nowhere is voluntary action more involved than in the individual participation of recreation. An enormous amount of work is being done in national parks and other areas.
A new interest in footpaths is emerging. I should like to see greater powers put in the hands of the national parks authorities to control footpaths in their own areas.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I accept the importance of footpaths. I hope that many will remain for the public to enjoy. However, does the hon. Gentleman not consider that some footpath organisations take too rigid a view of certain applications to realign a footpath or to close it and open it in another place? They seem to object on principle to any diversion of a footpath. That attitude is damaging to their cause.

Mr. Blenkinsop: That might be the case, but there are purists in many organisations. Nowadays, with so many field boundaries being destroyed altogether by modern agriculture, the answer is not quite so easy as it might have been some time ago.
I still argue that on highways a much tougher line should be taken by the Ministry in insisting that major modern through roads should not go bang through our national park areas. I am delighted that the Department has made the decision that it has on the trans-Pennine issue in the Peak District. I welcome it very much. I still regret that my own party has some responsibility for the utter disaster in the Lake District, which I regret every time I go near that area.
I wrote to my right hon. Friend—and I have his reply—about a matter that concerns me very much. I refer to access to commons. I am old enough to remember that, way back in time, we had the Royal Commission on Common


Lands. It reported in 1958, and subsequently we got an Act for the registration of commons. But the Royal Commission recommended that there should be automatic access to common land, and I see no reason why we should not have that right of access even though the rate of declaration of registered accepted commons is, to my mind, far too slow.
These are possible areas in which we could expand the facilities for simple recreation considerably with very minor expenditure.

9.22 p.m.

Mr. Clement Freud: I intend to follow the pastoral theme of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), and I should like to return for a moment to both racing and violence before talking about a subject that as yet has not been mentioned.
A number of points were made about the racing industry which ought to be cleared up with some authority. The hon. Member for East Grinstead (Mr. Johnson Smith), I think in an effort to be helpful, said that if the quality of the horses were low people would still gamble in exactly the way in which they are gambling today. I have to tell the House from considerable experience both in and, more often, out of the saddle, trying to catch the horse after it had run away, that this is totally untrue.
The compulsive gambler—the person who goes into a betting shop and needs to have a bet—will admittedly go on investing his money, losing his money and occasionally winning some, whatever the quality of the horses. But the real income to racing which comes from the betting tax comes from the large punter, who knows something about each horse. He can gain that knowledge only if the quality of the horses is above a certain level.
The money that goes to the Exchequer is not just the 7½per cent.; as Lord Rothschild pointed out, it is nearer 40 per cent. A£500 bet with one bookmaker will be covered by the bookmaker with another of perhaps£300, with the remaining£200 being covered with another. It is this sort of volume of betting that accrues that sort of income, and it is only for that reason that the betting tax revenue is as high as it is. I should be very unhappy if the House felt that, no

matter how poor the quality of the horses, the income would remain the same.
I listened with care to the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies), though there is one matter about which I disagree with him. He made a plea, rightly for greater income. He said that it would be a good idea if betting shops had television sets and if each betting shop paid£1 a race.
The Gaming Board, a splendid institution, was set up to save compulsive gamblers from themselves. In Las Vegas, one thing that I always deplored was that coffee was not served where one wanted it. One would be told that the coffee shop was at the bottom of the lobby—past 52 roulette tables, to the right of 120 one-armed bandits and beyond 18 blackjack tables. When one reached the coffee shop, one found that the girl who appeared to be a waitress was in fact selling American-style bingo tickets—without which no waitress ever came to take one's order. I should hate it if a similar situation developed in this country, in that if one passed the betting shop and saw a television one was made to spend more money than one had intended or wanted to do. For those reasons I am opposed to the hon. and learned Gentleman's suggestion.
On the other hand, it is pointless to have betting shops closing at an arbitrary hour such as 6.30 pm, when there are evening meetings. Goodness knows, the amenities in the average betting shops are so desperately uncomfortable that one has to be a masochist to go there in any case. Nobody could be seduced by the comfort of a betting shop. In order to raise the levy, betting shops should be allowed to remain open until the last race—otherwise, why on earth have them?

Mr. Rees-Davies: When the original Act was passed there were no evening races, so the hour was fixed at 6 o'clock by the Committee. If the words "after the last race" had been written into it I am sure that the Committee would have accepted that.

Mr. Freud: That is an interesting point, but it is not true, because at that time greyhound racing was taking place in the evening.
I should now like to refer briefly to soccer hooliganism. In his previous life


the Minister was a referee, whilst I, in my previous life, was a football correspondent, and I sometimes had occasion to criticise his decisions—as all good football correspondents criticise all referees.
There is a possible solution to the problem. A matter that has not yet been discussed is the simple fact that there is never any violence at East Grinstead, Tunbridge Wells, Weston-super-Mare or Bishops Stortford. That is because crowds beget violence and the way to get crowds at football matches is by being successful. The way to success is by investing heavily in players. There is no question but that banning supporters is a totally unacceptable way of dealing with hooliganism. There is only one way of dealing with it—by having proper crowd control and a sufficient number of permanent, and even temporary, police at matches.
There could be some tax on transfer fees, which, despite all freezes on pay, have escalated to a position of total lunacy, so that clubs are now paying£300,000 for quite indifferent players. It would be not so much a tax as a levy to the police. Clubs would be told that if they bought a player, 20 per cent. of the purchase price would go to the local police force, so that it would have sufficient money properly to police the people who might be seduced into coming to see that player. That would seem to be a reasonable solution. It must certainly be attractive to the Government, who do not wish to spend more of their limited funds. It would also be attractive to the police, who are looking for new ways of raising revenue.

Mr. Flannery: I deliberately neglected to mention in my speech the large number of suggestions that have been put to me for solving the problem of soccer hooliganism, including having matches starting at 10 o'clock in the morning instead of at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and having semi-final games played on a home-and-away basis instead of the present system. The hon. Gentleman has put forward his solution, but my speech was in a wider context. Would he support the setting up of an inquiry so that every suggested solution could be fully discussed?

Mr. Freud: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but it is simplistic to believe that we shall not get a solution until we have a major debate. When I was campaigning for election to Parliament, some people asked "If you get in, what will be your solution to Northern Ireland?". I replied that if I had a solution to the problems of Northern Ireland I would not wait until I got into Parliament to produce it. In the same way, anyone with a realistic solution would not wait until there was a major debate before producing it. We are all adult enough to be able to send a letter to the Minister asking why a certain proposal cannot be tried.
The equation is that expensive players bring crowds and crowds beget violence and a great deal of money. If some of that money were spent on extra policing, it would be a solution to the problem of violence.
One matter that is not raised often enough, but which I have experienced considerably recently in my constituency—and I am sure that other hon. Members have similar experiences—is the lack of eclecticism of so much of our expenditure on recreation. For example, a swimming pool was provided by the parent-teacher association for the benefit of pupils at a village school in my constituency and the headmaster has taken it upon himself not to allow anyone else to use that pool out of school hours.
Another example can be found in the city of Ely, which badly needs the sort of splendid sports centre that they have in St. Ives. An independent school in Ely is raising an appeal for a swimming pool that will be just big enough for the school. There is no doubt that the city needs that sort of facility and would have been prepared to join in a venture so that all the citizens could benefit from the new pool.
As expenditure becomes available, whether from county or district councils, the Jubilee Fund, or any other sources in these financially hard-pressed times, we should remember the community and stop thinking simply of the Women's Institute or the small group that might have had the good idea. Instructions should be given to planning authorities to make counter-suggestions


when they receive applications for permission to build swimming pools, gymnasia, squash courts and other sports facilities, so that one man's good idea can be implemented for the benefit of all. That is how the Minister's mind should be working, and it is that sort of proposal that should be included in his directives to local authorities.

9.34 p.m.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I shall not detain the House long. The White Paper says that a study is being made of the possibility of developing centres of sporting excellence at universities and other colleges. I wish to bring to the attention of the Minister that there is such a centre of excellence in my constituency—the Dunfermline College of Physical Education for Women. However, I regret to have to tell him that the Government are threatening to eliminate it and to remove it to another college. In the background is the fact that the other college is half empty and in order to remove its problems, the Government are trying to destroy a centre of excellence elsewhere. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the Government cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that they are encouraging centres of excellence as part of their sporting policy and then try to eliminate them as part of their educational policy.
This is one of the most outstanding colleges anywhere in Western Europe and should be regarded as a national asset and something to be preserved. In East European countries champions for Olympic events are taught in purpose-built colleges. Dunfermline is a purpose-built college. Dundee is not and it has no specialist facilities whatever. What is at stake is the destruction of an outstanding national asset. Page 18 of the White Paper says:
The Government feel it is right to give special encouragement to sportsmen and sportswomen capable of performance at international level, and expect clubs and other bodies to give priority to international calls over local interests.
This college happens to train a great number of the women who participate in national sporting events in Scotland. They also have ready access from Dunfermline to Meadowbanks stadium and swimming pool which were built for the Commonwealth Games, and to many

other superb facilities. If the opportunity to use these facilities is removed it will do irreparable harm to women's sport in Scotland.
Some hon. Members have spoken in this debate of the help given to disabled persons. The facilities at the college are used by disabled people from the city of Edinburgh. I do not see why they should be deprived of the long-established right of access to these facilities because of a planning error of the mid-60s when Ministers and officials planned a vast college at Dundee that it was never possible to fill. These people feel a sense of injustice. If the decision on the college goes against them and also retired people who use the facilities, this may become a matter for the Parliamentary Commissioner.
All this could have been avoided had the Minister taken the trouble to visit Dunfermline College. Not only have Government representatives not visited the college but not one of the inspectors in physical education employed by the Civil Service in Scotland has been consulted about the facilities or has been allowed to give any advice. The Minister has consistently refused these things despite the fact that the Government have been defeated twice on this matter—once in Scottish Grand Committee and once on the Floor of the House of Commons.
At the Labour Party Conference in Scotland a motion was passed condemning the Government policy. If the Government insist on pursuing this measure, notwithstanding their defeats, it will serve to convince many people that when a national college which draws its intake from every part of Scotland is threatened in this way the Government are discouraging women's sport in Scotland.
This matter is before the Equal Opportunities Commission because men physical education teachers in Glasgow are trained in superb facilities, and if Dunfermline College is removed the women will be trained in rotten facilities and it will mean that they are suffering discrimination. The Government will be treading on dangerous ground if they defy the decision of the House.
I urge the Minister to impress upon the Scottish Secretary that if he has any good intentions towards women's sport in Scotland he should leave this centre


of excellence where it is and encourage it to thrive.

9.39 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) on the splendid case that he has put forward. If the Minister is not able to deal with this matter adequately tonight I hope that he will make strong representations to his right hon. Friend.
Right away I must declare an interest, in that, as a Member of Parliament, physically, I am still partially active. From time to time, parliamentary and constituency engagements permitting, I play squash, hockey and tennis, and I also swim. Therefore, I am very interested in the debate.

Mr. Caner-Jones: Mr. Caner-Jones rose—

Mr. Winterton: I am sorry that I was not present to listen to the hon. Gentleman's excellent contribution. I know that he made a splendid and very just case, which I hope will be heard.
I apologise to those hon. Members whose speeches I have not heard. Having participated in the earlier business, I was engaged in dealing with one or two matters that required my immediate attention.
Having declared a personal interest, as a Member of Parliament, I must say that this House pontificates too often on what should be provided elsewhere when it does not make any provision for its own Members. I do not know how many people work in this complex of the Houses of Parliament. The number must be about 2,500. There is—I believe you, Mr. Speaker, know more about the facilities of this grand Palace than I do—a small-bore shooting range somewhere in the guts of this place, and I understand that there is one small attic upstairs where people occasionally play bridge. Whether that is permitted within the precincts of this place, I do not know.
However, other than the few bars in which one's arms and elbows get a little exercise, those are the only sporting facilities provided by Parliament for about 2,500 people. That is disgraceful.
I am traditional in many ways, but I regret very much that some of my more

traditional friends so strongly opposed the new parliamentary building in every way. If it had been built, some provision could have been made for recreation and exercise for hon. Members. I remind the House that a healthy body very often leads to a healthy mind. If we had better facilities perhaps the quality of debate would also be a little better.
I want to take up a matter that was raised initially in an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin)—the dual use of school premises. The idea is basically very good indeed. However, many of our schools do not lend themselves to being used very easily by outside bodies after school hours. I also intervened when this matter was raised, saying that when we are planning new schools in future—schools at every level—we might include all-weather playing areas, which could then be used by outside bodies without disadvantage to the young people attending the schools.
In saying that, I should like to go further and put forward the proposal that in the design of school buildings it should be made possible for people to enter the school changing rooms and shower facilities without going into the main body of the school. Therefore, teams could properly, constructively and responsibly use those facilities when they were playing games, particularly physical games such as rugby football and Association football in which, especially in wet weather, players get very dirty and inevitably need to shower and change. I repeat that it would be sensible, when designing school buildings, to ensure that the facilities for changing and showering were accessible to people from outside without going through the main body of the school.
One other point relating to schools is the unfortunate trend that I see developing, in which schools no longer ensure that all of their pupils undertake physical exercise at least once or twice a week. In education there seems to be a trend towards allowing young people to opt for community service or an allied activity, when most of the school is indulging in physical exercise. That is very bad indeed. I believe that all young people should necessarily undertake some form of physical exercise—if necessary, violent physical exercise—at least once a


week. When I say "violent exercise" I do not mean violent behaviour.
It is not my intention tonight to make any reference to soccer hooliganism. That matter has been dealt with adequately by previous speakers.
As for water sport and the use of our canals, I have had many representations from people who wish to use those facilities. Here we have a very valuable leisure-time facility that is being used by more and more people. However, I remind the Minister that unfortunately the fees being charged by the body that administers our inland waterways, particularly mooring fees, have been increased dramatically. Many people who have gone to the trouble and expense of buying a small motor cruiser, or of adapting a longboat, or whatever it might be, are finding it very difficult to meet the increased costs of partaking in these leisure-time activities.
In my constituency we have a number of problems relating to quarrying. Many of those who make application for silica sand quarries in my constituency say "When we have extracted all the silica sand, we shall turn the quarry into a marina and you can undertake water sports". We do not particularly want Congleton, the district where I live, to be totally surrounded by boating marinas, so that we have to go across causeways to get home. If such quarries are eventually to be used for water sports they need to be planned, and those plans need to be co-ordinated well in advance. If, in the application for planning permission, it is said that at the end of the work water sport facilities will be provided, firm assurances should be sought that that will be done.
Another important activity in my constituency is horse riding. It has become popular among all sections of the community in recent years. But there is a total lack of riding facilities in many areas. In the village of Poynton—a large village of about 10,000 inhabitants in the north of my constituency and bordering on Greater Manchester—there are, within a few miles' radius of the parish church of St. George, 9,000 people who ride horses and ponies. But their facilities are ridiculously limited, in spite of representations to the local authorities. There is a disused railway line, but in hoping

for the use of that land one comes up against British Rail, and there are considerable problems about the use of other suitable land as well. More thought should be given by the Government and by the local authorities to making space available to people who wish to indulge in this useful leisure activity.
Macclesfield itself is a substantial town, but it has totally inadequate facilities for sport. We have a very old swimming pool, which is of the Victorian era. We have a number of inadequate playing fields. I appreciate that this is very much the responsibility of the borough council, but in recent times severe pressure has been put upon the finances of local authorities, and bias has been shown against Conservative shire areas. Cheshire has suffered along with the rest. Although it has not suffered as much perhaps as Wiltshire or Cumbria, it has suffered severely.
The problem is growing. Macclesfield has taken a considerable amount of overspill from Greater Manchester, yet we have totally inadequate facilities. The borough council is endeavouring to give generous provision and is hoping to build a new leisure and sports centre. I trust that when this matter comes before the Minister responsible for sport he will give it sympathetic consideration.
In talking about what goes on in my locality, perhaps I can feed an idea to the Minister. In the village of Bollington, just outside Macclesfield, the local people, under the guidance of a local doctor with great drive and enthusiasm and other dedicated local people, formed a committee to build a swimming pool. They have raised a large amount of money. The pool will be for all the people—it is not just an effort by a parent-teacher association to build one for a school. The whole community will benefit.
This project has been able to get off the ground for one reason—the job creation scheme has helped. While the pool is being built by a private contractor, all the unskilled labour is being paid for by the job creation scheme. Perhaps extending the job creation scheme would be a method by which many more sporting facilities could be provided in areas where such facilities do not now exist.
I have spoken a minute or two longer than I had intended, but this is an important debate. Surprisingly, I find myself respecting what was said by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery). On virtually every occasion, I disagree strongly with his whole outlook on life and everything he says, but

on this occasion he made some very good points, which I know that the Minister has taken on board. I hope that what has been said by all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate will be seriously considered by the Minister. I am grateful, Mr. Speaker, that I caught your eye and was able to make this brief contribution.

9.50 p.m.

Mr. Hector Monro: If my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) keeps jogging on, he may be surprised at what will appear in this building before the end of the summer. I hope that he will set an example in Parliament in the use of the facilities which are then available.
It is a long time since the Under-Secretary spoke to us in the debate. I was in agreement with almost the whole of his speech, particularly the very interesting points he made about the environment. I am glad that we are having this chance of a further debate, because the last debate was very disappointing. It was truncated for reasons that had nothing to do with sport. I accept that the Minister of State had to make his important statement about hooliganism. That diverted the House from the White Paper that we had been waiting for a long time to discuss. Many people connected with sport and recreation outside the House were disappointed that some of the points that they had discussed in regional councils could not be dealt with in that debate.
I am sure that the Minister of State will want to take up some of the points raised in both parts of the debate and to which his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary did not have a chance to reply. He will want to say, and all of us will want to hear, something rather more profound about the question of resources.
All of us can think of many projects that have been mentioned in White Papers and that are worthy of being followed up. However, a project cannot be carried through to completion without resources. All Governments spend huge sums. Some Governments spend more than others. The question of how much of the national cake is to be devoted to one project is a matter of priorities. I am firmly of the view that sport and recreation are being starved. They have been hit more than most aspects of life by inflation. The increase in the Sports Council annual grant has not enabled the Council to develop sport as it would wish.
There has been no hint of remorse from the Minister about the fact that, if we had not had a Chancellor who has mismanaged

the economy for the past two years, resources might have been easier to come by for the Sports Council, local authorities and bodies concerned with sponsorship.
Contrary to what the Government had hoped, the Royal Commission on Gambling has failed to provide an interim solution. In March of last year the then Prime Minister—the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson)—wrote to the Chairman of the Central Council for Physical Recreation, that very able lady Mrs. Glen Haig, about her request to the Government that more resources be devoted to sport. The right hon. Gentleman said this:
We have asked the Royal Commission on Gambling to submit an interim report on the possibility of a levy on the football clubs, and also upon any other aspects of financing of sport out of gambling revenues which they consider could be dealt with at speed and separately from the main body of their enquiry.
When the Royal Commission published its interim report last winter, it was unable to help. Have the Government any views on what might turn up trumps to fill that void?
The Minister, at the end of his remarks on the last occasion, indicated that I said that the Conservative Party might tinker with the machinery of the sports council and the regional councils for sport and recreation. That is not what I said at all. I said that we did not want to tinker with the regional councils which had been set up and that it was not our wish to see any chopping and changing but that we reserved the right to look at the composition and number of members of the councils, not the structure, which should be allowed to run for as long as possible.
I should like, yet again, to add my tribute to the work of the Sports Council and to Sir Robin Brook and his permanent staff who do a tremendous job for sport in Britain today.
We heard some very interesting comments by many hon. Members, but particularly the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), about the Countryside Commission. We have had the opportunity of reading the interesting 1975–76 report. The only point that I would put to the Minister—not in criticism, but purely for information—is that the report refers to the setting up of the regional


councils and the servicing of them in part by the Countryside Commission. There have been difficulties about who were and who were not civil servants and whether the Countryside Commission would set up separate offices in different regions. I believe that it is likely to do that. However, an indication by the Minister about staffing would be helpful. Obviously, if the regional councils are to be successful, we must have a good permanent staff to service them.
I am glad that we had the opportunity of at least mentioning the importance of angling, caravaning and the many other country pursuits which are so important in our attitude to sport when it is genuinely sport for all, not just for the top-class competitor.
Again, as reported in column 1361 the Minister referred to the Opposition's attitude to VAT. The Conservative Party believes in a flat rate 10 per cent. Naturally, the 8½per cent. would go up to 10 per cent. and the 12½per cent. would come down to 10 per cent. if we were in Government. I have not yet noted any apology by the right hon. Gentleman for his involvement in the 25 per cent. VAT on boats which did such drastic harm to that area of sport whilst it was in force. It is important to put on record that we firmly believe that the£5,000 limit for VAT should be increased to£10,000 in an effort to help many small sports clubs and businesses.
I endorse the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super, Mare (Mr. Wiggin) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) regarding VAT on bloodstock. This is a clear-cut issue. I desperately hope that the right hon. Gentleman will advise his colleagues in the Treasury to look at this matter most sympathetically during the course of proceedings on the Finance Bill, because it could go a long way to help racing without enormous cost to the Treasury.
We have not heard anything from the right hon. Gentleman about rates. In paragraph 32 of the White Paper a general view is expressed, but the right hon. Gentleman has not said whether he will urge local authorities to take a much firmer line towards mandatory derating of sports facilities. I know that we want to give the local authorities the maximum

powers, but here is something that has dragged on and on. When facilities are made available to all and sundry in a community, the local authority should give as much help as possible by means of rate relief. It may not be able to give 100 per cent. relief but at least it can give something. Even 50 per cent. would be a tremendous help.
The right hon. Gentleman would help sport if he gave a firm indication of his views on this issue. In Ireland there is a mandatory 36 per cent. If it is mandatory in Ireland, I do not see why we should not move towards something of the sort in England, Wales and Scotland.
I know that it is not the right hon. Gentleman's responsibility, but on an earlier occasion I raised some issues relating to Ireland and I have not received a letter of reply. I notice that there is no one on the Government Front Bench from the Northern Ireland Office. I appreciate that Northern Ireland Ministers are particularly busy dealing with most important matters elsewhere.
I do not know how this happened, but Donald Shearer became Donald Saunders in Hansard. However, we all know about the important work that Donald Shearer does for the Sports Council in Northern Ireland. I asked three specific questions and I have not received an answer. I do not expect my questions to be answered tonight but perhaps they will be taken up by someone in the Northern Ireland Office. They related to the postponement or even abandonment of foul sports centres in Northern Ireland at a time when all of us will surely agree that it is a part of the country that deserves the maximum help possible.
I asked, too, about the£30,000 grant limit for the five-year period. Why did that relate specifically to Northern Ireland, especially to the youth programme? I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will say more about the youth programme in England. Does it exist? Has it been given the importance that it undoubtedly merits by the Department of Education and Science? We know of the involvement of the Home Office and the Department of the Environment, but there seems to be a lack of clear policy for youth. There is no need for us to emphasise the value to the community of facilities for youth. We have talked about hooliganism and vandalism and we could well


see a decline in the outbreaks of such behaviour if there were adequate facilities for youth.
I wonder whether the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science is putting enough thought into the youth service. We should like to see some positive action as soon as possible. We must make a more positive effort to accelerate the joint use of sports facilities. We cannot invoke legislation, but a powerful and urgent circular would bring home the views of the House. I know that there are many authorities that have done extremely well, but that comment does not apply to them all. The greater the joint use of sports facilities, the better.
I endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) about the great tragedy that it would be for Scotland if we lost Dunfermline College, which is such a wonderful centre of excellence for women's physical education and games and sports of all kinds. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman does not know whether the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science is to produce a policy document on the youth service, but it would be a tremendous advantage if she did so and had another meeting with the CCPR. The last meeting was not very productive of new ideas.
I wish to mention another point which was highlighted in the debate on 6th April, in column 1318, relating to the importance of action-research experiments in leisure activities. I look forward to reports on that count in the near future. The Minister gave the impression that the Labour Government had set up this scheme. But because I had personal experience of this activity, I know that it was set up in 1973, and I remember the, arguments about which of the four towns should be chosen.
We have heard some interesting and informative comments on racing, particularly from my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West. I have already dealt with the subject of VAT related to the important subject of bloodstock and of harmonisation with the EEC. I was most impressed with the recent developments in the Jockey Club and with the co-operation which has been received from the Horse-race Betting Levy Board, as well as with

the advances in technical services in terms of the new laboratory. Generally one can feel that there is great enthusiasm to improve the efficiency and presentation of racing in Great Britain. There are also the advantages of RILC and the important work carried out by BRIC which highlighted the problems of racing and stimulated a great deal of argument. That, in turn, brought forward a number of positive suggestions.
I should like to know what the Minister thinks about the structure of racing. In the debate in the House of Lords, the Minister in the other place appeared to think that there were ideas for a newly constituted Horseracing Board. However, I should like to leave well alone until we are convinced that an alternative would be preferable. We must seriously examine the financial implications for the industry. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West mentioned the bookmakers and the effect in terms of taxation.
I believe that the only way in which we can see an early injection of funds, possibly within the next year or so, is via the Horserace Betting Levy Board. I understand that discussions to increase the levy are taking place, and this matter must be brought to fruition as soon as possible. We must not wait indefinitely until the Royal Commission reports.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) underlined a number of important points concerning unfair competition with other countries, and these matters are most important for the racing industry. Mention has been made of the excellent conference today chaired by Sir Alexander Glen—a conference attended by a large number of racing and tourist interests.
Many excellent racecourses are unused for a large part of the year, but it has been found difficult to obtain planning permission from local authorities for the use of those courses for caravan sites when unused for race meetings. Racecourses could be used in a constructive way for such services because they contain washing facilities and all the rest of it. However, some local authorities appear to be a little sticky about granting planning permission for the use of such sites by caravans.
I wish briefly to deal with the subject of hooliganism, which rightly has had a large part to play in this debate. Many hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery), feel very strongly about this subject. There is a case for more discussion of the problem. Those discussions will have to be held in conjunction with Home Office Ministers who have a great responsibilty on this score.
The hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) underlined the fact that there appears to be better behaviour at Rugby Union international fixtures, which attract huge crowds. It must be remembered that those fixtures are all-ticket concerns. Obviously it is more difficult for the hooligan type to obtain a ticket. To do so he needs initiative and a good deal of money. The right hon. Gentleman's insistence on making difficult soccer matches all-ticket games will go a long way towards keeping out the undesirable people who ruin a good game of football and cause immense annoyance to the great majority of people.
I have watched with interest the progress of the Criminal Law Bill and I welcome the increased powers contained in it. Like the Minister, I know that we already have strong powers. I know that I should not say anything about what the magistrates do, but I wish they would use to the full the powers that they have already. That would go a long way to showing people that we really mean business.
Hooligans should not expect to come out of court with only a£5 fine each time after causing endless damage and inconvenience and causing great annoyance to our long-suffering policemen. The application of existing powers is as important as bringing in new ones.
The extension of the idea of all-ticket games will make it more difficult for the hooligans to get into the ground. I do not want to go into the subject of hooliganism in depth because I am sure that the Minister will speak about it. He has the advice of committees, and I am sure that he will put into practice anything that they recommend that is feasible and practical.
I was glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland stayed with us this

evening. The hon. Gentleman has written me a letter dated 4th May stating that the position with regard to Hampden is not much changed since he replied on 23rd March. In fact there has been a dramatic change in the composition of the Glasgow City Council. Perhaps we shall have a different attitude on the committee concerned. The facts are there. I know that in the long run it is a question of money, but let us get on with the decision and planning so that when the resources are available we can start modifying Hampden Park as soon as possible. It is no good waiting until we have the money, because the planning will take another three years. Let us get on with it under new management.
I feel duty bound to ask the Minister to say something to the hon. Member for St. Helens and the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones). I declare my interest as one who is involved and interested in rugby football. The two hon. Gentlemen must accept that there are two points of view on this issue. It is far better to discuss it in a reasonable frame of mind than to make rather outrageous comments and to use words that are alien to our discussions. It was most unfortunate of the hon. Member for St. Helens to talk about apartheid, which has nothing to do with the subject.

Mr. Spriggs: Is the hon Gentleman aware that the 1895 International Secretariat has written to the Rugby Union people at Twickenham several times without even getting an acknowledgment of the correspondence?

Mr. Monro: I was talking about apartheid.
The hon. Gentleman kept using a word that is alien to hon. Members when discussing a game that has nothing to do with apartheid. It is wrong for him to do so and he should withdraw.

Mr. Spriggs: I will not withdraw.

Mr. Monro: The hon. Gentleman will remember that it was the Rugby League people who withdrew from the Rugby Union in the first place. The House will accept that it is most important to those who play Rugby Union, an intensely amateur game, that they should be able to control their game in what they think are its best interests. There is great difficulty


in finding a satisfactory road between the two codes. The hon. Member for Eccles, perfectly fairly, said that youngsters can play Rugby League up to the age of 18. After 18 it is possible to apply to play Rugby Union provided payment is not received for playing Rugby League. It is no use expecting people to go backwards and forwards from one code to the other, because that is not acceptable.
The hon. Member for Eccles was right to say that this is an International Board regulation and not something entirely for the Rugby Football Union. There is no doubt that rugby football is doing well. It would be better to leave it alone and to discuss these matters in a reasonable way. I know that there have been discussions between members of the Rugby Union and the Rugby League—

Mr. Spriggs: When?

Mr. Monro: Last year. I see no reason why these should not continue, although, frankly, when a game is played in strictly amateur terms it is difficult to become involved with another game that has a different attitude to payment. There can be discussions, but there must not be an expectation of rapid improvement or change. The codes are miles apart. I think it should be left that way.
I hope that the Minister will think about the money which is taken out of sport in taxation and which is not returned. This is something that worries sportsmen. I trust that he will bear in mind the importance of sport in relation to our social problems, particularly vandalism. We have talked about joint provision and physical education and rightly mentioned the disabled. I am glad that the hon. Member for Eccles spoke so strongly about what is being done to integrate sport involving the disabled.
We cannot tonight delve into every sport and recreation. What we ask is: does the country understand the value of sport and recreation, not in competitive terms but, in the phrase of the Sports Council, in terms of "Sport for all"? I am sure that the country has not taken on board that this is an important part of our everyday life on which we should not be afraid to spend reasonable sums of money. There are enormous opportunities and everyone involved is trying to take advantage of them. It is up to us and the

Government to co-ordinate all these efforts so that the nation obtains the maximum benefit.

10.18 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Mr. Denis Howell): During the last debate on this subject the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) said:
I believe in the concept of the existing sports councils. The Minister should stand back, set the climate for sport and fight battles within Government."—[Official Report, 6th April 1977; Vol. 929, c. 1331.]
As the debate has progressed, I have been keeping a count. A total of 56 separate subjects has been raised. If I were to deal with them all, we should certainly not end the debate before five minutes past midnight and I should probably need extra time. I shall deal with as many subjects as I can.
The debate has certainly proved the importance of the subject and the importance that the House attaches to it. It has justified the demand for a second helping of parliamentary time. I hope that we can arrange to debate these matters at least annually—if not more often—not least because I should like the Opposition to explain their inconsistencies and contradictions. They have been at it again tonight.
Throughout the evening we have had a constant demand for money to be spent, particularly from the Opposition Front Bench. We have even been promised some for Glasgow. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland was beside himself with joy that because of the result of the polls money would be made available for the development of Hampden Park.

Mr. Monro: I was talking of a change of attitude. If we do not do the planning for Hampden Park now, we shall not be ready when the money is available in two or three years' time.

Mr. Howell: We shall have a change of attitude but not a change of policy. We shall not have the money that is needed. I should like to see the Hampden project going ahead but, in local government terms, the cost is astronomic.
Demands for more money have come from all parts of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) also said that


everyone was asking for more money to be spent. The Opposition continually urge us to spend less and criticise the Government for the level of public expenditure. That is one of the great contradictions.
The second contradiction was the argument that we are taking too much money out of sport and that sportsmen are up in arms about it. We were also told that if the Conservatives get back in power they will increase to 10 per cent the VAT on sports goods. The main criticism of sporting bodies is the Government's current taxation policy.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: What will happen on Monday night?

Mr. Howell: I do not know what will happen on Monday. I am more interested in what is happening tonight. I am sorry that now the polls have closed people will probably be elected who will spend even less money on sport and recreation than has been spent in the past. I hope that that proves to be incorrect.
The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) wants a gymnasium in the House of Commons. I support that idea. When we examine the stresses and strains on right hon. and hon. Members, and in particular the recent unfortunate occurrences and the by-elections which have ensued, it becomes clear that the House should give a lead on the health of the nation. However, that is a matter for the Services Committee, which is extremely sympathetic. We have talked to the people who we think should run a gymnasium. We have found a modest, small place where a gymnasium could be housed. I hope that when the matter comes before the House those who have taken part in this debate will give a lead and ensure that our colleagues support us. There will be a free vote on the matter.
I turn to the staffing of regional sports councils. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane) thought that there were too many local authority representatives on the councils. That is inevitable because the local authorities provide some of the money. About£330 million is provided by local government, of which the Government pay about 60 per cent. Because of the provision of money and resources and the planning

function, local authorities must play a central role in the regional councils. The regional councils have succeeded, for the first time, not only in bringing local authorities together but in adding to them the voices of those concerned with sports and other allied interests.
When the local authorities come to do their strategic planning and their specific planning and when they come to provide their services, they will have the advice of sport and recreation available to them and they will also have sport and recreation as a pressure group. That is the concept. It has been working well in the past 10 years for sport, and I am confident from what I have seen up and down the country that it will work very well for sport and recreation as a whole. There is tremendous good will, and I am glad to say that it goes beyond parties in the regions and the local authorities.
It was for that reason that I was anxious to get the Countryside Commission to have sufficient staff, so that it could play its full part. We were able to authorise it to make appointments in every region in the country. I should like to go even further, because some of these regional staff will not be housed in their regions. I think that that is daft, but that is their choice. I know that it is difficult for them, and I do not criticise them because of it. Nevertheless, it would make more sense if we could move in that direction.
The hon. Member for Dumfries and others asked about the youth service. I have strong views about it, but I am afraid that I am not responsible for it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mind my saying that, when I was responsible for it, between 1964 and 1969, I produced a document called "Youth and Community Work in the 1970s", in which we outlined a great deal of the Government's thinking about taking the youth service into the communities and out of its rather more structured situation and out of the former youth clubs. We predicted well ahead of our time that, unless we got the service into the communities, all these problems of vandalism and so on would get worse.
I agree profoundly with my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough that our problems of vandalism and hooliganism are very deep-seated and represent a phenomenon in our society to which none of us knows the answers or even the


reasons. We do not know the questions, never mind the answers to the questions. But I am sure that, unless we get out into the communities and find the causes of these frictions and the way in which these troubles manifest themselves, especially in our inner cities and areas of deprivation, the problem will grow.
I do not think that a national inquiry is the answer. If I thought that it was, I should be more than willing to agree to one. To date, we have had all sorts of inquiries. But again I thought that it was a very unfortunate step when the present Leader of the Opposition closed down the Youth Council when she became Secretary of State for Education and Science in 1970. I remind the House that it has now been re-established by the present Secretary of State.
How it was thought possible to have a youth and community policy without bringing the voluntary organisations together in the Youth Council, I do not know. Closing it down was a very unfortunate step. I think that I know how it happend, since I used to be a Minister in that Department. It was never very popular, and I think that the right hon. Lady, as a new and incoming Minister, was bounced into closing it down. It was very unfortunate, and I am glad that at long last it has been reopened.
I come next to the Sports Aid Foundation and centres of excellence. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) referred to Dunfermline College. That may be an excellent college, but it is not a centre of excellence in the terms of my White Paper. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has asked me to say that he will write to the hon. Gentleman replying to each of his detailed points. Obviously, for good or ill, I am not responsible for Scottish affairs and certainly not for Scottish educational affairs, but I accept that the hon. Gentleman raised an important point.
I am glad to say that the centres of excellence show every sign of going well. As I said on the last occasion that we debated these matters, the universities and colleges have responded in a remarkable manner and are willing to establish centres of excellence where gifted sportsmen and women can go. In such centres

not only will the sportsmen and women have top-class training from national coaches, approved by the national bodies governing their particular sports, but there will be somebody responsible for their job training, careers and accommodation, if necessary. That is the distinctive British answer—the answer that we must give to the Eastern European system of training and to the rather bogus American university scholarships.
The first seven of these training schemes got off the ground at Leeds at the beginning of January. I was in Portsmouth last week to talk to the Southern Regional Council for Sport and Recreation and heard encouraging reports of the number of sports for which it hopes to start such schemes soon. Proposals are also coming forward from the West Midlands, Lancashire and the Eastern Region. We are starting from cold here with something quite new, but I shall be surprised if there are not 25 to 30 such centres in existence by next year. However, there is still a long way to go.
The Sports Aid Foundation has done excellent work already, starting from scratch. In its first year it has raised£60,000 to£70,000 and we wish it well—particularly its chairman Mr. Paul Zetter, who has given the organisation a tremendous amount of his time and enthusiasm. I am sure that we are all grateful.
There has been some controversy lately, especially since the publication of a document by the Sports Council, about the timing of which I am a little critical. It might have been put out as a Green Paper rather than a White Paper because we could then have produced a White Paper later. There is no doubt that the Sports Council was grasping the nettle as a result of its discussions with the governing bodies of every sport represented at Montreal about the problems that were faced there. The Sports Council has said that there is no question but that more resources must be made available for training. Some people find that anathema, but I do not.
I agree with the hon. Member for East Grinstead (Mr. Johnson Smith) that no higher honour can be accorded any sportsman than for him to be asked to represent his country. However, not giving him resources to train and to back him up


means that we are sending him into international competitions ill-equipped, ill-prepared and facing financial and psychological difficulties. We have not the right as a nation to ask people to represent this country in sport and yet to impose such conditions upon them. There is an obligation upon us to remove the deprivation from which so many of our sportsmen suffer.
It is not only important for nationalistic reasons. I agree with the hon. Member for East Grinstead that when we do well in sport the whole nation feels better because of it. When Wilkie wins a gold medal, when Ann Jones wins Wimbledon or when we win the World Cup, we all feel better. As the hon. Member for East Grinstead rightly said, the important thing is the inspirational effect. Thousands of people may take up a sport and obtain a new interest because someone has done well. To see that in practice, look at what happened when John Curry won a gold medal. The tragedy was that we could not produce the ice rinks that were needed overnight and the upsurge of interest has died away because of the lack of facilities. The two things are closely linked.
Some interesting remarks have been made about education and recreation. A particularly interesting contribution was made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) who even went so far as to say—and I agree—that recreation and education are one and the same thing. They are both about recreation. That is the proper terminology.
I do not wish to spend too much time speaking about the lack of facilities, except to say that I am glad that the matter was raised by so many hon. Members—they were absolutely right to do so. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) referred to a headmaster who would not let people from outside his school use the school swimming pool. The headmaster did not provide that facility, so he should not be allowed to take the decision to deprive the community of the use of it. I agree with the hon. Member for Macclesfield that we need more all-weather facilities. A school playing field cannot be used all year round, but an all-weather area with floodlighting would enable it to stay open.
The campaign run by The Sunday Times has been mentioned, and, although I do not entirely agree with everything that that newspaper says, I welcome the campaign. Anything that can be done to focus the attenton of central and local government on these matters is very much welcomed. Indeed, The Sunday Times came up with the ingenious solution of a change in the law and got someone to draft a new clause that we could put in an Education Act. However, I believe that the problem is not one of changing the law but rather one of pricing. Most education authorities and local authorities would be willing to open their facilities if that could be done at a reasonable economic cost. That is the heart of the matter. There is not much point in telling local authorities that they must open schools on Sundays and provide sports facilities if the economic cost of doing so prices out the people that we are trying to get in.
It was for this reason that I announced in our last debate that we shall be holding a conference in every region during the autumn. I hope that the Opposition will agree to provide representatives at the conferences because it is important to have a joint approach as far as possible.
We are asking the regional councils for sport and recreation to get this under way and to look at the facilities in their areas, and where we can put pressure on people to understand the importance of providing leisure services, and to justify the failure to open community-based facilities, we should do.
The only good thing to come out of the reorganisation of local government has been the establishment of sport and recreation departments, and I hope that they will make plans for their areas and will go beyond local authority facilities. We must also condemn the cricket club that is closed for eight months of the year when, with all-weather facilities, it could be used all year and the industrial sports ground that could be used during the week by pensioners whose sport and recreation are equally important. A whole range of activities are included in the concept of a leisure service, and we shall be getting these conferences under way in the autumn.
I certainly include here the camping and caravaning facilities and the access to the countryside mentioned by my hon.


Friend the Member for South Shields. People are increasingly wanting to get away from it all by going into the countryside, and local authorities must provide for a leisure explosion over the next 10 years. If they do not, it will be no good their complaining about people parking caravans in beauty spots or on lake shores or about people pitching tents in places that are regarded as inappropriate. People will solve their own problems unless we, as a community, provide for them.
I am considering whether we can provide more camping facilities in this capital city—and I am including in the consideration youth hostels, which were also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields. There is a tremendous need in this city. Some wonderful young people come here, many of them from abroad, and they cannot afford to stay in expensive hotels. There are not enough places for them to camp. As they are some of the best and most disciplined members of our society, they should be encouraged.
With the Camping Club of Great Britain and others, we are looking into this to see what can be done, and we hope that we can make some progress.
I shall deal with the questions raised about Northern Ireland before I come to the Welsh national anthem. I agree very much that sport probably can do more to bridge the gaps in the Northern Ireland community and bring people together than can anything else. This has already been demonstrated by Mary Peters. We must, therefore, encourage sport in the Province. Six sports centres are planned for Belfast. The one at Maysfield will be opened in late sumer. Those at Andersonstown and Connswater are under construction, and the one at Shankhill is about to be started. Of the three others, Ballysillan will continue in a modified form, and the Belfast Council has purchased St. Mary's Training College to help provide facilities in the White Rock area where there will be a 25-metre swimming pool.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I am concerned about the leisure centre at Shantallow. I happened to be in Londonderry at the weekend. The site for that centre is located on the west bank of the Foyle, an area that is dominated by the Catholic

population. Does the Minister think that this facility will achieve the objective that he has stated? I have an unfortunate feeling that it may not, and I regret it.

Mr. Howell: I cannot give an answer. I am sure that my hon. Friend dealing with Northern Ireland affairs will take note. I am sure that the Northern Ireland Sports Council was fully and adequately consulted—or I certainly hope that it was. I shall seek its views on this matter.
The element of grants in Northern Ireland for individual clubs has increased from£30,000 to£40,000, which will be a help. Grants are being given to golf clubs, which were previously excluded.
Hon. Members have mentioned the question of rating relief for sporting bodies. I was very forthcoming in the White Paper on this matter of a 50 per cent. rating relief for sports clubs because I think that it would be good business for local authorities. Voluntary sports clubs are providing facilities for young people which local authorities should provide themselves. That is why I have urged that the rating relief be made. Sportsmen should form local lobbies to go to see their councils and urge this upon them.
I cannot make it mandatory. The local authority associations have approved the White Paper including the 50 per cent. rating relief, but they will not agree to make it mandatory because of the repercussive effects on other charities in other areas. They have a strong case too. But where the sportsmen get some steam behind their efforts they will succeed.
On the question of taxation and sport, I shall talk very briefly about VAT. I have all the figures. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) is not here, but he mentioned this in the last debate that we had. It seems that there is a discrepancy in the treatment of VAT by Common Market countries, but EEC Draft Six Directive, which is effective from 1st January 1978, would harmonise these matters. Although the position gives some grounds for argument now, it seems that in the matter of VAT and sport the EEC is moving towards harmonisation. This point was mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) and the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely has apologised for not


being here for the winding-up speeches but he has gone to the count in his constituency.
The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) made a very interesting contribution on these matters, while corporation tax was raised by the hon. Member for East Grinstead. I know that the latter is pleading the case of the British Olympic Association, but the fact is that where any sporting body gets its income as a result of trading activities, it is inevitable that it should pay corporation tax on it. For example, if a sporting body says to a petrol company "Will you please give us a penny on every gallon of petrol you sell for our sports fund" and the company agrees, that is a trading operation conducted in competition with the other petrol companies. Therefore, if one excluded from corporation tax the income produced in that way, it would be unfair to its competitors. I think that that is one of the great difficulties.
All these matters of taxation have arisen time and again. However, as we all know, the Finance Bill is shortly to go into Standing Committee. I hope that hon. Members will put down amendments and let the whole House consider their solutions.

Mr. Macfarlane: Will the right hon. Gentleman support them?

Mr. Howell: I shall support consideration of the amendments. That does not take me into suggesting that I shall actually vote for them. But this is very important.
The ingenious solution of the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West that 1½per cent. of betting tax should go back through the Treasury is what over generations has become known as the hypothecation of taxation. As I understand it, no Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever agreed to the hypothecation of taxation since the Lloyd George road fund tax. Personally, I have always been attracted to the idea. I cannot see why the House has opposed it. But, alas, as yet I am not Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I cannot, therefore, suggest to the House or encourage the House to believe that my right hon. and hon. Friends would embrace the principle, which would have very serious consequences for the whole of the taxation system.

Mr. Rees-Davies: Likewise I am in favour of hypothecation, but I was suggesting that the Treasury takes all the money but that, knowing precisely what 1½per cent. will give it—give or take£1 million—there is then a figure of 1½per cent. which it gives back by way of grant to the Horserace Betting Levy Board. Thus one avoids hypothecation but one gets 20 per cent. of the gross take.

Mr. Howell: That may be the case for the plaintiff. I should like to hear the case for the defendant before commenting further on that matter. I think that we should need much persuading.
On the subject of lotteries, mentioned by the hon. Member for Dumfries, one of the things that the Government have done is to have new lottery legislation. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) is not present, because he forced the pace on this matter and deserves credit. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department is present. She has spent a lot of time on this matter and we have had much discussion. I am now told that under the Lotteries Act 1976—sports bodies should note this—the maximum turnover of small lotteries has been considerably increased. It is now£10,000 in the case of weekly promotions. I am told that if a sports club ran a lottery each week and sold the tickets, it could net over£200,000 in one year.
Therefore, this is a new facility, and I do not think that the sports bodies have yet fully understood it. This, allied to the other announcement made by my hon. Friend about instant lotteries and helping to promote them, provides a big incentive and, I hope, a big help to many of the sports clubs.
I have one last comment on racing. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Dumfries about RILC. I think that it is an extraordinary step for the Jockey Club to tell me that it cannot embrace my proposal for a racing council until the Royal Commission has reported but then promptly to proceed to set up RILC.
I know that the Jockey Club is one of those ancient institutions. I do not think that any Socialist has ever been elected a member. If he has, I have never heard of it. But it does a good job with the rules of racing. But a sport—indeed,


it is an industry—like racing has to have a fully representative council at its head. The body set up by the Jockey Club has been trying to do the job in a vacuum, and I would like to see it develop into a firm racing council.
We had this situation with cricket. There was the same problem where the MCC, a private club, was running the game. When I was Minister responsible for sport previously, I persuaded it that the time had come to have a cricket council on which every section of the sport would be represented—clubs, players, schools, and so on. The Cricket Council has worked well since its establishment, and all those interested know who represent them on it. If it can work so well with cricket, I see no reason why we should not move towards democratic government in horse racing.
I was asked about the refusal by the Football Association to play the Welsh National Anthem at Wembley. I strongly regret that decision. In Rugby Union, one has seen that when both "Land of My Fathers" and "God Save the Queen" are played they are treated with great respect. Where that is not done, one gives offence to a lot of Welshmen, which can sometimes be embarrassing when they are asked to sing "God Save the Queen". I hope that the Football Association will look at this matter again in that light and come to a sensible decision, which will do no harm to anyone but give a lot of pleasure to a lot of people. Of course, it might upset some English a little, because the Welsh sing "Land of My Fathers" with a fervour rarely heard for other national anthems. Indeed, I am told that it is worth a five-point start when the Welsh hear it played.
I turn to the question of sports sponsorship. I think that it is here to stay. It is a welcome development that we should encourage, provided that the sponsor does not try to take over the sport. That does not happen here, in my experience. However, I take note ofwhat the hon. Member for East Grinstead said about the Annan Committee, and will draw it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
Hon. Members spoke of Rugby Union and Rugby League. I note what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs), my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones)

and the hon. Member for Dumfries, the President of the Scottish Rugby Union, although he was, as we all do from time to time, wearing a different hat. I find the rigidity that exists almost indefensible. I do not know how one can defend a situation where one says to a chap "If you are playing one sport during the week you cannot come to us and play another." If that attitude were taken in any other sport, there would be a great outcry. We ought always to be encouraging everyone to play sport, whatever the sport of his choice.
The Rugby Union knows my views. I have expressed them many times to it. I think that it now has some sympathy with them and that we have made some progress. I agree that there is not a complete wall of hostility there. The fact that I and the Rugby Union have had these disussions is an encouraging development. There are questions of international jurisdiction. I understand that the Australians, for example, are particularly sticky on this point. But I would like our own home unions to press internationally for this new course to be taken.
Meanwhile, the Sports Council agrees with us about the matter, and recently the British Amateur Rugby League Association has been fully recognised by the Sports Council, which last year gave it a grant of£20,000 to encourage the amateur Rugby League game. We shall continue that policy in the hope that wiser counsels will prevail in the end so that this present discrimination, which is unjustified, can be eliminated.
We have seen the Press-cutting about the situation in Oxfordshire and think that there must be a failure in communications somewhere. I have taken this matter up with the Rugby Union and I know that it would deprecate any incident such as this. However, it can find no evidence of this happening. If my hon. Friend is able to let us have details, I will look into the matter.

Mr. Monro: I inadvertently misled the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) when he talked about a meeting. I meant that the meeting was between the RFU and hon. Members representing the Rugby League.

Mr. Howell: I am glad that the hone Member and my hon. Friend have been


able to sort out that difference between them.

Mr. Spriggs: When it was stated that a meeting had taken place, I decided to have the matter looked into. The matter has now been clarified. Will my right hon. Friend make strenuous efforts not only to bring hon. Members and both sides of the rugby game together but also to bring about a change in the international rules?

Mr. Howell: I have no responsibility for the rules of sport. I found the Rugby Union people very understanding and very agreeable to deal with. I understand that the Labour Party Sports Group has asked to meet representatives of the Rugby Union. I shall urge the Rugby Union to agree to such a meeting.
I will look into the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields about the inland waterways and write to him.
The hon. Member for Macclesfield mentioned mooring charges. It is very expensive to run canals. When the Fraenkel Report is published, the House will be faced with the question of the cost of essential maintenance of the canals.
We must not forget the 3½million anglers. My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles urged that anglers should be afforded greater access to reservoirs. This morning I put precept into practice and went to Datchet Reservoir, where I caught a 2½1b. trout. I should go home as soon as I can and cook the fish, because I need a good meal. If you care to come with me, Mr. Speaker, I shall be glad to share the meal with you.

Mr. Speaker: As long as the right hon. Gentleman goes at once.

Mr. Howell: If I thought that, were I to leave at once, you would join me, Mr. Speaker, I should be very tempted. However, I have yet to deal with the question of hooliganism.
The question of anglers having greater access to waterways is of great importance. All the sports councils and regional water authorities have recreation committees or water recreation committees.
You will be glad to know, Mr. Speaker, that I intend to deal with only 12 of the 56 subjects which have been raised in

the debate. I have left till last the vexed question of hooliganism. I wish I knew the answer. We all want to know the answer, but none of us knows it. It is a social phenomenon of the greatest concern within our society. We all have our pet theories. Its causes are many. They are associated with social deprivation, boredom, lack of content in the leisure syllabus within schools and lack of parental discipline at home.
I have my own prejudice. In most working-class homes the mother is the disciplinarian. A lot of this trouble can be traced back to the time when mothers began regularly to go out to work. Now mothers have three jobs. They go out to work, come home, do the cooking and the laundry and so on. Working mothers probably have the most difficult job in society. Therefore, the easy way to get the children away prom under their feet is to give them 50p to go out. When a mother has done her job outside the home, added to her other daily tasks, all she wants to do is to put up her feet and watch television. Therefore, there is a lack of communication within families.
We do not know whether we are right about our pet theories in this respect. All we know is that this is a growing and intolerable problem. It is producing many problems in communities, particularly those near football grounds, and we must deal with them as a matter of great urgency.
I have no power to do anything. I can only work in concert with the Football Association and the Football League. They are the only bodies which can take action, because the clubs are members.
We must take steps immediately to reduce the problem to a manageable size, particularly with regard to the so-called supporters of the two worst clubs—Manchester United and Chelsea. That is what we have tried to do. I believe that we shall have some success with the all-ticket matches which I have suggested. But we must go further. We want all-seated stadiums. We want to improve the quality of crowd control. I agree with all the points which have been made about stadiums.
Magistrates appreciate the seriousness of this problem. In the last few weeks penalties have been more realistic. I have urged magistrates, as the hon. and


learned Member for Thanet, West has urged me today, to impose more realistic sentences which will keep trouble-makers away from football matches on Saturday afternoons—for example, by sending them to attendance centres, getting them to do community service, and so on. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary agrees with this approach.
The Criminal Law Bill is now going through the House, and I hope that this aspect will be considered. I do not think that fines are the answer, although we are giving the courts powers to increase them. That is just one of the armoury of measures which is to be made available.
Reference was made to supporters wearing certain badges. We would like to find out who manufactures the badges worn by the supporters of one club saying "We hate Leeds", I think it was. This is a terrible situation. Indeed, I understand that some supporters wear badges proclaiming "We hate Denis Howell". I suppose that is the final accolade. At least it shows that somebody is trying to bring them to book. [Interruption.] I gather that someone is offering to wear one of those badges in the House. I can well understand that. Having been asked to reply to 56 points, I have had to take a little longer than I wished. However, I hope that hon. Members who have had to endure the length of my speech have also found it attractive.
Six clubs in the Midlands—Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Coventry, Stoke, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton—have announced that they are taking special steps to deal with the juvenile problem by producing a juvenile season ticket and not allowing other juveniles admittance at concessionary rates. Juveniles will have to produce a form countersigned by their parents and bearing a photograph. In other words, it will show membership of a supporters' club.
I think that we must move in the direction of all-ticket matches. When Manchester United and Chelsea have genuine supporters' clubs, can identify their supporters and accept responsibility for their behaviour at away matches, we might be able to move in that direction because we can then be reasonably satisfied that we can control the situation.
The debate has proved the great importance of sport in the life of the community.

We have been talking about the problems of sport but they are not really the problems of sport at all, they are the problems of our society that at present manifest themselves in sport. Sport is about the happiness, the joy and the pleasure of participating in games or recreation.
We must always remember that the most important justification for everything we are doing in sport is the development of individual personality and the sense of satisfaction if we hit a ball properly or we play a good shot. That sense of satisfaction is enormous. Every citizen wants the pleasure and sense of satisfaction that comes from accepting a challenge as well as the association that sport brings to sportsmen and women, which in my experience is unparalleled anywhere else in society.
At the end of the day sport is the one unifying factor in our society. It unifies us whatever our political, religious or ethnic background. It is in that spirit that the debate has been conducted. I express my appreciation to everyone who has taken part in it.

Mr. Alf Bates: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Mr. Speaker: With the leave of the House, I shall put together the five motions relating to Statutory Instruments

Mr. George Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I take it that what you have said will not take away my right to object to all the motions.

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman says "No", I must put the motions separately so that he may object to them separately.

Mr. George Cunningham: I am quite content to object to them all together if that saves time.

Mr. Speaker: No. They must be taken separately if there is objection.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No.


73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.)

DIPLOMATIC AND INTERNATIONAL IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES

That the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1977, a draft of which was laid before this House on 20th April, be approved.—[Mr. Bates.]

Question agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: With the leave of the House, I shall put Motions Nos. 4 to 7 together.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Order on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.)

DIPLOMATIC AND INTERNATIONAL IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES

That the International Monetary Fund (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1977, a draft of which was laid before this House on 20th April, be approved.

AGRICULTURE

That the Agricultural and Horticultural Cooperation Grants (Extension of Period) Order 1977, a draft of which was laid before this House on 19th April, be approved.

That the Agricultural and Horticultural Cooperation (Variation) Scheme 1977, a draft of which was laid before this House on 19th April, be approved.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

That the Employment and Training Act 1973 (Temporary Powers Continuation) Order 1977, a draft of which was laid before this House on 19th April, be approved.—[Mr. Bates.]

Question agreed to.

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (MEMBERSHIP)

Motion made,

That Mr. Geoffrey Rippon be designated a Member of the European Parliament:

That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.—[Mr. Bates.]

Hon. Members: Object.

POLICE (SPECIAL BRANCH)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bates.]

11.12 p.m.

Mr. Robin F. Cook: I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the subject of inquiries by the Special Branch. I have sought this debate because I am disturbed by the number of instances brought to my attention in recent months.
Before I go into detail, it might be appropriate to inform the House about some developments involving the Special Branch. The Special Branch has been with us now for a long time. Indeed, it will shortly be celebrating its hundredth birthday. I do not know how it proposed to mark the occasion, but since it does not issue an annual report it might be appropriate to have a centennial report to show what it has been up to.
What is intriguing about the way in which the Special Branch has operated in the past hundred years is that for the first 70 years it showed considerable stability in the size and extent of its operations. As late as the 1950s it had fewer than 200 personnel. By the 1960s it was 500 to 600 strong. By June 1974, when Mr Roy Jenkins the former Home Secretary was in office, we were told in a parliamentary answer that the size of the Special Branch was about 1 per cent. of the total police force. That would be consistent with a figure of just over 1,000 police officers. It had risen from a figure of 200 in the 1950s to a figure of 1,000 in 1974. I note that the figure has now been revised to a figure of less than 1 per cent. But it is still consistent with a figure of 1,000, which would tally with what we know of Special Branch operations in Scotland Yard and the regional forces.
What should disturb the House is the fact that this substantial extension in Special Branch strength has taken place without a single scrap of public debate in the House or outside it. The House may be interested to have a quotation from Mr. Alderson, Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, as reported in yesterday's issue of The Times. He said:
Police authority can be abused. It can become master, not servant. It can snuff out more freedom than it protects. The main problem lies in control.


The regular police forces are answerable to local authorities, and this provides a form of democratic check on their activities. But the only democratic control of the Special Branch is through the answerability of the Home Secretary in the House of Commons.
In view of the substantial increase in the Special Branch—an increase of five times since the late 1950s—it is vital that Parliament demands more open debate about its activities. At present we do not even have the information on which to base such a debate. We do not know, for instance, how large the staff is. We do not know its total budget or the nature of the inquiries it makes. Whenever questions are asked, the standard reply is that such matters cannot be answered without endangering the operations and effectiveness of the security service.
But every chief constable in every annual report reports to local authorities throughout the country. Those reports contain such information as to numbers of staff and budgets and the nature of inquiries, and nobody suggests that such information handicaps the fight of the police forces against crime in an area. Why should the Special Branch be treated differently?
Before I come to particular incidents that concern me, it is important to put on record that I am not opposing the case for a security service. Every nation has its security service. Britain, with its troubles in Ulster, necessarily has to have a security service. But it is worth remembering that we have a separate anti-terrorist section in Scotland Yard, which has 200 police officers specifically charged with coping with the activities of Irish terrorists, Arab terrorists, and anybody else interested in using violence for political ends.
What are the other 1,000 police officers in the Special Branch doing? Some of the things they are doing would disturb the public if they were better known, particularly because they concern ordinary citizens who have never been involved in any act of subversion or involved with any group which uses violence as a political means.
For example, there is the case of Mr. Christopher Hird, a London journalist, who recently put up bail for a friend. The editor of the paper for which he

works, the Daily Mail, was subsequently approached by two officers of the Special Branch who inquired whether he was aware that Mr. Hird had offered bail in the case. The offering of bail is a perfectly legitimate legal right. One might say that in the case of a friend it is a perfectly legitimate legal duty. What possible right has the Special Branch to advise an employer of the perfectly proper exercise by Mr. Hird of his legal rights?
There is the intriguing case of Mr. Steven Wright, a postgraduate student pursuing a thesis on the social implications of police technology. He was recently visited by six officers of the Special Branch at Lancaster University. Three of them had come all the way from Scotland Yard. The six officers raided his home and office within the university premises. When his professor objected to their presence in the university precinct they replied that issues of national security were involved. They subsequently confiscated a large volume of Mr. Wright's research material, including—and I find this particularly sinister—the research proposal he had submitted to the university.
I heard today that Mr. Wright has been discharged from police bail and that no charges are to be laid against him. One could not have clearer evidence that there is no issue of national security involved. I should like to quote the statement issued this afternoon by Mr. Charles Carter, Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster, who said:
Those who work in universities cannot expect to be exempted from the application of the law, but they can reasonably ask for sympathetic understanding of their duty to seek access to all evidence relevant to their studies. Truth is not something to be determined by the State.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will agree with that. But I must also ask her whether we are to conclude from the investigations of the Special Branch, its presence in the university precinct and its continued retention of Mr. Wright's research proposal that it does not regard his legitimate thesis as a fit subject for academic inquiry.
Then there is the case of an officer of a nationalised industry who was recently visited by representatives of the security service of that industry, who told him that they had been informed by the Special Branch police that he was in


contact with a certain journalist. As that officer is a public relations officer, I should not have thought that that was a particularly damaging charge. I should have thought that the nationalised industry in question would have more cause to complain if the information was that he was not in contact with any journalist.
But there is a serious point. What right has the Special Branch to be passing information to the security services of nationalised industries about the contacts, whether private or professional, of the officers and employees of those industries?
All those incidents have one thing in common: they are connected with a case before the courts. I am aware that, because of the practice of the House, I cannot refer to that case, but I think that you will permit me to say, Mr. Speaker, that there is a legitimate problem for the House as I have referred to exactly that case in an article in the New Statesman, which can be purchased on the streets of London today and tomorrow by any hon. Member who cares to buy it. It is very unsatisfactory that the practice of the House should be such that we can write about the case in the Press but cannot discuss it within the Chamber. It is perhaps a practice that we should examine on another occasion.
For tonight the point is whether all these incidents—odd, pointless and irrational though they may be when taken separately—have a certain relevance and make a certain pattern which adds up to sense when we connect them to one case. Are we witnessing a deliberate campaign to intimidate investigative journalism, which is also at stake in that case?
I hope that my hon. Friend will reflect on my points and the incidents I have described, and that, if she shares my unease, she will start inquiries in her Department until she has satisfied herself on these matters.
At least the incidents I have so far referred to have occurred in the open. I now want to turn to a number of curious incidents which have occurred to members in the defence committee of Agee and Hosenball and also to members of the defence committee in this other case to which I shall refer as the case of Messrs. X, Y and Z. On Monday 7th February

the car of the treasurer of the Agee-Hosenball committee was broken into. A number of papers relevant to the committee were withdrawn. Her cheque book and cheque card were also withdrawn, but were subsequently returned to her via a branch of Barclays Bank. This is most eccentric behaviour for any thief.
On Friday 11th February the home of Phil Kelly was entered. Again no valuables were removed. On Monday 21st February the car of Phil Kelly was broken into. Several papers in the car had been scattered by someone obviously looking for a particular piece of information. On Wednesday 23rd February the address book of Mr. Nash, who is the solicitor of Messrs. X, Y and Z, went missing. On Saturday 26th February the car of Rodger Protz, who had visited Messrs. X, Y and Z at the police station the preceding weekend, was broken into. Again, a briefcase was removed but no valuables. On Wednesday 23rd March Graphic Design Workshop, which has done work for one of the defence committees, was visited at 10 p.m. by three men who purported to be plain-clothes policemen. They said that they had been summoned to the workshop by a call from an employee. There was no employee in the workshop at the time and no one in the workshop had called the police.
On Monday 25th April Mr. Aidan White, who has been a member of both defence committees and who is secretary of the East London NUJ branch, had his flat broken into while he was out. Again, his papers were rifled and drawers and files were ransacked. Again, there was the same curious lack of interest in any valuables. The prowler went so far as to open a bag of money containing£3 or£4 in small change but removed nothing from it—a truly eccentric act for a thief committing an act of burglary.
Nearly all of these incidents have been reported to the police. In none has any charge been brought. In each there is perhaps no cause to have wider suspicions. But, taken as a whole, there is a pattern which emerges. It is a pattern of some person or group of persons not interested in cash rewards, indeed, ostentatiously going out of their way to show that they are not interested in cash rewards, but prepared to break the law in search of information on the two defence committees.
I should like my hon. Friend to raise this matter with her right hon. Friend and to ask him whether he will consider using such powers as he has under the Police Act to act on the public concern which has been expressed on these incidents to launch an investigation into the series as a whole. I hope my hon. Friend will be in a position to give an assurance that neither of the security agencies has been involved in any of these incidents. Perhaps she is in a position to give that assurance since I gave her notice early this morning that I would be referring to each of these incidents. If she is not able to give that assurance to the House, I hope that she will launch the most vigorous investigation so that she can be satisfied, with her right hon. Friend, that neither of the security agencies is involved in any of these incidents.
I have no evidence to suggest that the security agencies are involved. But there is evidence to suggest that they were interested in surveillance of both the Agee-Hosenball defence committee and the XYZ defence committee. We know that from Sunday 20th February phone taps were placed on the lines to the offices of Time Out and the National Council for Civil Liberties. This information has been leaked by sympathetic Post Office engineers. Both these offices were heavily involved in the defence campaign and the use of phone taps in this case must suggest a deliberate act of surveillance on the campaign.
Perhaps I may say a word to the House about methods of covert surveillance. It is an extraordinary comment on how complacent we are about the activities of our security services that we have had no investigation of the use of these covert methods of surveillance, of phone tapping and opening of mail since the Birkett Report of 20 years ago. That report recommended that nothing more should be said on these matters, and every Administration since then has faithfully followed that recommendation and said nothing.
Although an article in The Times in 1975 suggested that Roy Jenkins felt that it was perhaps time we had more up-to-date figures on phone-tapping, the absence of new information and a new official report would not be so worrying if we could be confident that the situation was the same as it was in 1957. But

since 1957 the Special Branch has increased five-fold. We also believe that MI 5 has doubled in size. We know that the number of lines from the central listening post has increased from 23 to 72. That means there has been a trebling of the number of lines from the central listening post.
The Birkett Report reassured the public because it said that phone-tapping should be done under the "close personal supervision" of the Home Secretary. That was credible at that time, but the number of warrants have trebled. It is difficult to believe that the personal supervision of the Home Secretary remains that close. Twenty years after Birkett it is surely time for another once-and-for-all investigation into whether the best ways of issuing warrants are being used.
I am conscious that I have referred to many details. I emphasise that I do not expect the Under-Secretary of State to reply under each heading tonight. I hope that she will reflect on the issues that I have raised when she leaves the Chamber. I hope that if she shares my anxieties and those of other hon. Members she will carry them to the Home Office.
We are fond of saying that we are proud of our tradition of civil liberty, the right to political expression and academic freedom. But it is difficult to preserve these traditions, given the centralising of modern society which drives us towards a corporate State. We have scant hope of defending these values and traditions if the security services show the type of contempt for them that some of these instances suggest.

11.27 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): I appreciate that from time to time there may be some concern about the conduct and activities of police officers employed on Special Branch duties. I am glad, therefore, to have the opportunity to explain to the House that these officers, who perform a most valuable service particularly at the present time, are ordinary police officers who are accountable for their actions in the same way as other police officers.
The Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police developed out of the Irish Bureau, which was set up in 1883 to deal with Fenian activity. Other forces in England


and Wales now have their own Special Branches. There is no national Special Branch. There could, therefore, be no annual report of the Special Branch. Only in the annual reports of each chief constable can there be annual reports of individual branches. Although it co-ordinates the collection of intelligence affecting the activities of the Irish Republican Army, Metropolitan Police Special Branch in no sense controls the Special Branches of other forces.
Special Branch work is a normal part of police duty. Officers employed on these duties are responsible through their senior officers to their chief officers of police, who are responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the preservation of public order in their areas. Police officers employed on Special Branch duties are concerned mainly with offences against the security of the State, with terrorist or subversive organisations, with certain protection duties, with keeping watch on seaports and airports and with making inquiries about aliens.
I should like to make it clear that chief officers of police recognise fully that the duties of Special Branch officers are such as to require the strictest control by senior officers. I have already said that they are accountable, in the same way as other police officers, to their chief officers of police. I should also emphasise that they are not in any way exempt from the provisions of the police discipline code or from the law. These provisions apply to police officers engaged in Special Branch duties as to all other police officers. It follows, therefore, that the police complaints procedure also applies to Special Branch officers. Complaints against them are investigated in the normal way and, in the Metropolitan Police for example, such complaints may be investigated by A10 Branch.
The fact that Special Branch officers are ordinary police officers means that, in the course of their careers, they are likely to be employed across the whole range of duties and responsibilities which police officers undertake. In the Metropolitan Police, Special Branch officers, together with the other police officers employed in the CID, are participants in the policy of interchangeability introduced by the former Commissioner of Police.
It is clearly important that police officers should receive appropriate training for their duties. Officers employed on Special Branch duties are given detailed instructions on the way they should carry out those duties and about the limits of their responsibilities. I hope it is clear, therefore, that there is no question in this country of the Special Branch being an independent force. The subject matter of its inquiries makes it difficult for its work to be as much in the open as the generality of police work, but its structure, training, discipline and organisation are all designed to place its work firmly within the normal police arrangements.
My hon. Friend referred to the activities of Special Branch officers in connection with the investigation of offences under the Official Secrets Act. He will appreciate, I am sure, that it would not be appropriate for me to comment on matters which have yet to be resolved by the courts.
The responsibility for enforcing the law rests with the police. It is for them, in consultation as appropriate with the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Attorney-General, to decide whether proceedings should be brought in any particular case. Proceedings under the Official Secrets Act require the consent of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General.
My hon. Friend referred previously, if he did not tonight, to the confiscation and retention by the police of certain documents from Mr. Duncan Campbell. I cannot discuss an individual case which is still before the courts. The House will appreciate that it would be difficult for me, therefore, to discuss why documents had not been returned in a particular case without becoming involved in the merits of the case itself. But I can say that the documents will be dealt with as quickly as possible and will be retained no longer than they are needed.
I want to say a little in general terms about inquiries under the Official Secrets Act with particular regard to documents. When information is received, from whatever source, that offences against the Official Secrets Acts have been or are suspected of having been committed, the investigation of these offences is normally undertaken by Special Branch. Where


necessary—and this is almost invariably the case—a search warrant will be applied for under Section 9 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. Under the terms of this warrant, premises and persons found therein may be searched and any documents or other material which is evidence or gives reasonable grounds for suspicion that an offence has been committed under the Official Secrets Act may be seized by the police.
My hon. Friend referred to Special Branch strength. As I said, there is no single national establishment for the Special Branch, so there is no national Special Branch. Each police force has its own Special Branch. As police authority for the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office has more information about the Metropolitan Police Special Branch. This does not bear out the suggestion that the strength has grown five-fold in the past 20 years, which I have seen made recently in the Press. My information is that the increase has been of the order of 85 per cent. in the past 20 years, bearing in mind that one of the major responsibilities of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch is the co-ordination of information about IRA activity in Great Britain and that we are very understandably much more concerned about this topic now than we were 20 years ago. So this increase would not seem to me to be unreasonable or in any way sinister.

Mr. Robin F. Cook: I appreciate the information that my hon. Friend is giving the House, which is very helpful, but she will appreciate that 20 years ago there were no regional branches of the Special Branch. I presume that the figure of 85 per cent. to which she referred represents an increase within the Metropolitan authority.

Summerskill: Yes. I was referring to that when I gave those figures.
We do not have readily available figures for Special Branches throughout the country, but I understand that the officers employed on Special Branch duties represent about 1 per cent. of the total strength of the police forces.
My hon. Friend referred to a case concerning Mr. Christopher Hird and the Daily Mail. We have had the allegation

that he made looked into—the allegation that Special Branch officers visited the editor of the Daily Mail to ask whether he was aware that Mr. Hird, a reporter for the Daily Mail, had stood bail for Campbell or Aubrey, who are two of three people accused in the Official Secrets Act case. The inquiries that the police have been able to make about this allegation enable the Commissioner to say that at no time has any Special Branch officer spoken to the managing editor or any other employee of the Daily Mail concerning Mr. Hird and his connections with this case.
My hon. Friend has asked for an inquiry into a series of alleged thefts and break-ins involving members of the defence committees for Agee and Hosenball. He has insinuated, without a shred of evidence, that the Special Branch or the security services were responsible. I have no reason to suppose that there is any substance in these insinuations. If criminal offences are alleged to have been committed, they should be reported to the police for investigation. Those responsible for looking into security cases of this nature are under the same duty as the rest of us to operate within the law.
As far as I am aware, the alleged offences have not been reported to the police. If they have not, I invite my hon. Friend to arrange for them to be reported as soon as possible to the chief officer of the area concerned, with details of names, times, places, and so on. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has asked the Commissioner to ensure that any offences reported in this connection are as thoroughly investigated as possible.
As for Mr. Wright, if he wishes to make a complaint, it will be investigated. As the police inquiries were connected with another case that may come before the courts, it would not be correct for me to comment.
I must repeat that Special Branch officers have no special status and that they are subject to the same sort of control and accountability as are any other police officers. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary believes that their activities are entirely within acceptable rules. It is important that there should be high morale and confidence, accompanied by


proper conduct, on the part of the body of police officers who are of great importance to our security.
The Special Branch was set up over 90 years ago to deal with certain terrorist

activities. The need for protection today is at least as great as at any time during those 90 years.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes to Twelve o'clock.